


All the World's a Stage

by VampireBadger



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Ethan Frye is is a dick, F/M, I have no idea where this is going, Jacob is a little bit broken, Jacob/Roth is fascinating though, M/M, Modern AU, Why am I writing this? I don't even ship this, pyromaniacs, seperated at birth au, unhealthy relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-05-05
Packaged: 2018-05-22 00:20:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 51,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6063661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VampireBadger/pseuds/VampireBadger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...and all the men and women merely players. Modern AU. Jacob and Evie are separated at birth, and while Evie stays with their father, Jacob is abandoned to the streets of London. When Maxwell Roth finds him, brings him into his fold, everything changes. For the first time, Jacob feels wanted, he feels power-he feels like he'd do anything for Roth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

(21 Years Ago)

-/-

A man and two infants lie in a dark room.

The man is on his back, on the ground, staring up at the ceiling. The infants are together in a crib. Brand new—it hasn't seen much use yet. Everything in this room is new, really. The crib, the toys, even the paint on the walls. The newborns have only just arrived, in this room and in this world. The particular chaos of infants has not yet been inflected on this room. Only the man is old. It is not obvious at a glance—he is in his early twenties, fit and healthy. But his eyes are dark, they are too old and too sad for his face.

There is no sign in this room of the infants' mother.

One of the babies is asleep but the other won't stop crying. He balls up his tiny fists and _screams_ , putting all his energy into the loudest cries his tiny lungs are capable of. It seems impossible that his sister should be able to sleep through this, but maybe after nine months together in the womb she's used to him.

The door creaks open and an older man steps through. He hesitates in the doorway, eyes drifting to the screaming boy, then down to the man on the ground. "Ethan," he says, just loudly enough to be heard over the boy's cries. "They're about to take the…the body away. If you want to say goodbye—"

"I've said goodbye," Ethan interrupts. "I said goodbye before she died, I don't want to see her corpse."

The silence in the room stretches out, broken only by the continued screaming of the little boy in his crib. It's only when his sister finally wakes and starts to whimper as well that Ethan heaves himself to his feet and stumbles toward the two. For a long moment he just watches them, shoulders slumping, and then he leans forward and picks up the girl. "Can you take the other one, Arbaaz?" he mumbles. "I can't do both of them."

His friend nods, although Ethan isn't looking at him, and walks over to pick up the boy. "What a pair of lungs on him," he says. "He's a strong one."

Ethan doesn't look up from the girl. He's cradling her tightly, securing her against his chest. "That's the one that killed Cecily," he says.

Arbaaz stiffens a little, and the boy in his arms even manages to quiet himself as if in surprise. "He's a newborn," Arbaaz says at last. "He hasn't killed anyone."

"She's _dead_ —"

"Accidents happen in childbirth," Arbaaz says. "Particularly in a home birth."

"She delivered Evie," Ethan says. "She was fine. But the second one—that's when the bleeding started. Pushing that one out killed her. _He_ killed her."

"You're upset," Arbaaz says. "Give it time."

"Will time make her less dead?" Ethan asks. "Will it make her death _matter_ less?"

"Of course not," Arbaaz says. "But it will make things clearer. You'll see it isn't your son's fault."

"But it was."

Arbaaz sighs. The baby in his arms takes a gulp of air and finally goes quiet, cries fading to nothing. "I like the name Evie," he says. "What did you name this one?"

"I didn't," Ethan says. "And I won't. I'm not keeping him."

"Ethan!"

"I'm serious," Ethan says. "He killed my wife."

"He—"

"She would still be here, if that one hadn't been born!"

Arbaaz looks at Ethan like he's never truly seen him before. He tries to speak once, then twice. On the third try, he manages actual speech. "Let me take him for a night or two," he says. "Jayadeep will love having a baby in the house, it wouldn't be any trouble at all—"

"He's worse than trouble," Ethan says. "He's a curse." He gently leans over to replace Evie in her crib, where she burbles and kicks her legs against the bottom. Then he turns to Arbaaz and the nameless boy. "Give him here," Ethan says.

"What are you going to do?"

"Give him here."

"You're not going to hurt him, are you?"

Ethan almost seems to be considering this. Then he shakes his head. "I won't hurt him." His face is unreadable, but Arbaaz's is a mess of conflicting emotions. In the end, he hands over the baby.

"We've known each other a very long time, Ethan," he says. "I'm trusting you not to do anything you'll regret."

"I won't," Ethan says. "Can you go see if they're done with… with her body?"

Arbaaz nods and backs out of the room.

When he is alone, Ethan leans against the wall and stares at his son. He's starting to cry again, and this visibly disgusts Ethan. He mumbles inaudibly, tone angry, and only seems to grow more impatient as the room darkens around them. After an hour or so, when night has well and truly fallen and the moon clearly visible through the nursery's window, he gets up and walks out of the room.

He might have drawn stares out on the street, if anyone had been around to see him. His bare feet make soft sounds against the sidewalk, and his thin T-shirt is absolutely unsuited for the weather. It's just past sunset in early November, and a brisk wind cuts through the deserted streets. Ethan walks several blocks, and then stops abruptly on a street corner. Turns.

There is a church here. It's not grand, not old, not architecturally impressive. In the dark, a passerby could have been forgiven for thinking it was a store or even a warehouse. It's a little rundown, a little grim. A grimy sign over the door proclaims it to be St. Jacob's. Ethan hunches over the boy in his arms and walks quickly away from the street, toward the church's front door. There is a little hollow here, and Ethan does not hesitate as he leans down to set his son in the corner where the door meets the wall. Then he turns, and without looking back, walks home.

For a long time, nothing happens. The baby fusses, and when no one comes to comfort him, cries. He has been crying off and on for hours, of course, but there is something new in his tears now. Something desperate and scared. No one comes, but the night gets darker and colder. The boy quiets, then goes silent and still.

When the old woman who comes by to do the cleaning arrives early the next morning, the baby is nearly dead.

Nearly, but not quite. The old woman calls an ambulance, and when the EMTs arrive they say he's lucky to be alive at all. They hurry him to the nearest hospital, where he is fed and wrapped in warm blankets, then allowed to fall into a miserable, exhausted sleep. The doctors look at him and shake their heads, and wonder why he hadn't died.

"That boy's a survivor," one of the nurses says. "Something in him wants to live."

And live he does. The police make a search for his parents, but come up with nothing. No nearby hospitals have records of a newborn matching this one, and no one comes forward to claim him when they advertise publicly. It must be admitted that the police did not make as much of an effort as they possibly could have—the general feeling is that even if the parents could be found, they wouldn't be allowed custody of the child after abandoning him. After a week, when the boy has recovered from his night on the streets, he is moved into care. His name is recorded as Jacob Church, for the place where he'd been found.

With a name like that, of course he grows up with a bit of the devil in him.

-/-

(Present Day)

-/-

Jacob waits long enough to be sure the warehouse is well and truly alight before leaving the scene. He knows how to set a building on fire, of course, this isn't his first arson, but he likes the feel of heat pressing against his face, loves the sound of the flames roaring as they devour everything in their path. It's a dangerous hobby, but Jacob _thrives_ on danger. When the heat is so intense he thinks his eyebrows are about to singe, Jacob turns his back on the warehouse, stuffs his hands in his pockets, and walks away.

Three blocks away, a panicked man with wide eyes grabs at him. "What's going on?" he demands. "Is something on _fire_?"

Jacob glances over his shoulder. He can still see the flames from here, and the air is thick with the smell of smoke. A fire truck blares its horn as it comes racing closer. "Yea," Jacob says, beaming. He pulls the man's hand off his arm. "Yea, I think something probably is!"

The man stares at Jacob as he walks off, laughing now. He'll probably give Jacob's description to the police later, but that's not a problem. Roth will take care of it.

Right on cue, his phone rings. Jacob glances at the screen just long enough to make sure it's Roth calling, then composes himself and picks up.

"Jacob, darling" Roth says, and even through the phone Jacob recognizes the approval in his voice. "Job done?"

"Course it is," Jacob says. "Things are burning, people are panicking, and I'm headed home for a change of clothes." A fire engine screams past him, followed by a police car—Jacob makes a rude gesture with the hand not holding his phone.

" _Well_ done," Roth says. His voice swells in that particular way he has. It's an actor's voice, a voice that knows how to show emotions, and Jacob can clearly hear the pride there. He's been working for Roth for three years now, and the novelty of pleasing him still hasn't passed. "Come home," Roth continues.

 _Home_ means the place by the Alhambra where Roth lives, not the shoebox apartment rented in Jacob's name. _Home_ means spending a few hours—maybe even the whole night—with Roth. Jacob's heart skips a beat, and he tries to hide it behind a smirk that won't quite come. "Don't you have the premiere tonight?" he asks.

"Not until seven." Jacob tilts his phone away from his ear, just far enough to check the time—it's a little past five. Not enough time, not _nearly_ enough time… "Hurry, darling," Roth says, and he's laughing as he hangs up.

 _Damn_. That's a challenge, and Jacob takes off running. Two hours is not enough to spend with Roth, not nearly enough. But the theatre will always be Roth's first love, something Jacob could never live up to, and frankly being second place isn't so bad. So maybe Roth isn't around enough. That's okay. Jacob can count on one hand the number of people that have ever been around at all.

Besides, Jacob knows he's useful. He knows Roth trusts him—there's more to Maxwell Roth than an ordinary theatre owner and actor, and Jacob is proud to be one of the very few people Roth trusts with his other businesses. The drugs, the gunrunning, the gangs—Jacob doesn't know everything, but he knows it's all incredibly illegal.

The warehouse Jacob has just burned belongs to one of Roth's rivals. Drugs, probably. There would have been more explosions if there was any serious weaponry in there. Roth hadn't been particularly forthcoming, and Jacob hadn't asked. This is the kind of stuff Roth had brought Jacob in for in the first place. Arson. Beatings and intimidation. The occasional back alley knifing. Not a bad life, all told, and all of it done for Roth.

Jacob slows when he gets to Roth's building, and takes the elevator up to the penthouse. He straightens his clothes, tries to get his breathing under control. It works okay, but he knows his face must still be red from the run. Too late to do anything about it now.

When he gets into Roth's apartment, the man is already there, waiting for him. And—Jacob is suddenly grateful his face is still red, because it covers the flush in his cheeks—he's lying on the bed, absolutely naked. His smile and the way his eyes drop instantly from Jacob's face to his crotch show that he knows exactly what this is doing. "Come here, love," he says, and Jacob does.

He can feel Roth's eyes on him as he strips off his jacket and shirt, but neither of them speaks until Jacob has kicked off his shoes and shimmied out of his pants. "You smell like hell," Roth announces, barking a laugh. "Fire and brimstone."

"Fire, at least," Jacob says, joining the older man in bed. Roth reaches over to stroke his hair, smoothing it back like he might pet a dog, and Jacob smiles languidly up at the ceiling. It's so easy to relax here, and it has nothing to do with the sex he knows is coming. If that was all he wanted, girls are easy enough to get. Roth is older than Jacob, more experienced but also—well, he never seems to have as much energy in bed as Jacob.

Nah. The sex is fine, it's good—but it's not the point. The point is that Maxwell Roth is Jacob's _idol_. He divides his life into two parts, life before Roth and life after, and the before-Jacob had been nothing but a petty crook, a statistic, a nobody foundling with no past and no future. Roth had taught him something better. Power, the kind of power that comes from burning fortunes and stabbing rich men. Of knowing that with a single strike of a match or thrust of a knife, a man like him can change, can _end_ someone else's life.

Jacob has been a nothing and a nobody a long time. He's not going back to that.

"Your mind's wandering, Jacob darling." Roth calls Jacob's mind back to the present, his hand wandering lower down Jacob's naked body. "I don't have much time tonight, so let's get started, shall we?"

"Yes," Jacob says, and for a while every thought in his mind is purely physical. Touching and being touched, the exultation of opening himself up for _Roth_. For this man that has changed everything in his life, who has shown him what it means to be powerful, to be strong, to be someone that _matters_.

This is the first man that has ever cared about Jacob. _That's_ the point of the sex, because as long as they still have this, Jacob knows Roth still cares. The part of Jacob that is always so afraid that Roth will get tired of him and walk away is quiet. Just for a little while.

Roth does something unexpected with his tongue that sets off fireworks inside Jacob, and he bites back a scream of pleasure. Alright. So maybe the sex _is_ pretty damn good.

Roth is done long before Jacob is really satisfied. He rolls off Jacob, smiling (the smile is genuine, a rare sight on Roth's face), and Jacob groans. "That's it."

"Places to be, things to do," Roth says. He's panting slightly, but sounds perfectly cheerful.

"Right." Jacob flops back in the mess they've made of Roth's bed. "The theatre. The premiere."

Roth pauses, reaching for his pants. "Why don't you come with me?" he says.

"Come with you?" Jacob asks. He spends plenty of time hanging around the Alhambra, but not on important nights like this one.

"Sure." He gestures vaguely at the mess of clothes scattered around the room. In all the time he's known Roth, Jacob doesn't think he's ever seen the man's room clean. Not like Jacob's much neater. "Find something to wear. I can show you off."

Jacob scrambles out of bed. Roth had never offered to show Jacob around his precious theatre before. This is big, this is more approval than Roth has ever shown Jacob before. Whatever was in the warehouse Jacob burned must have really been important. He's done well today.

He smiles while he gets dressed. He smiles when Roth tells him he's done it all wrong and orders him to strip off again. He smiles when Roth dresses him up a second time, like a doll, and he smiles as they walk down the street to the theatre.

The inside is packed absolutely full of people in their best clothes, milling around and chatting as they wait for the doors to open. This is a nicer (or at least richer) class of people than Jacob is used to seeing, and he hangs half a step behind Roth. "What am I supposed to do?" he asks.

"Mingle, dear boy," Roth says. He's not looking at Jacob anymore, he's looking out at the crowd, a distant frown on his face. "I've a few things to take care of before the performance begins." He shoves a ticket at Jacob and is gone before Jacob can say a word.

Left alone, Jacob feels suddenly very out of place. He still smells of smoke and sex, and he's dressed in another man's borrowed clothes. But the people closest to him are giving him disapproving, judgy looks, and Jacob has never been okay with people looking down at him. He flashes a cocky smile and makes a beeline to the bar at the back of the room and orders a drink.

There's only one other person there, a tired looking man that's probably from India or somewhere. He sees Jacob looking and tries a smile. "You don't look like a man that wants to be here either," he says.

"I thought I did," Jacob says. Then Roth left.

"This was my girlfriend's idea," the man goes on. "I wanted to stay in tonight, but—" he sighs. "It's for a good cause, I suppose."

Jacob assumes this good cause involves getting laid. "Good for you," he says shortly.

"I'm Henry," the man says, sticking out a hand. "Henry Green."

"Jacob," Jacob says, taking the hand reluctantly. "Just Jacob?"

Henry raises his eyebrows, and Jacob sighs. "Someone decided I wasn't worth the bother after I was born," he says. Flat and uninterested, like it doesn't matter anymore. "Left me outside some church, so of course they decided to saddle me with _Church_ as a name."

"Hmm." Henry tilts his head sideways, studying Jacob intently. "Doesn't seem to fit you."

"I certainly hope not," Jacob says. "That was the first and last time I've ever been in a church—spent my whole life since then running in the opposite direction."

"Names are a difficult thing," Henry agrees. "I don't use the one I was born with." Jacob scoffs—he should have guessed. _Henry Green_ is just about the most nondescript name he's ever heard. It's like meeting a man called John Smith.

"Why not?" Jacob asks. He couldn't care less, really, but he wants to keep sitting here with his drink, and there's no point irritating his neighbor.

"It's… complicated," Henry says.

"Life's complicated," Jacob tells his drink.

" _There_ you are."

Jacob and Henry both turn as a woman calls out. Henry brightens immediately, and stands. "This is my girlfriend," he tells Jacob. "Evie Frye."

Jacob shrugs, and watches Henry give Evie an apologetic look as she sits down on his other side.

"Jacob," he says, when she fixes him with a look.

"Looking forward to the show?" she asks.

"I know the man that owns the theatre," Jacob says. "I'm here for him."

"Maxwell Roth?" Evie demands. "You know _Maxwell Roth_?"

"Intimately," Jacob says, with a lazy smirk.

Evie gives him a look that—well, Jacob could have put up with it if she'd seemed disgusted by him. But her expression says very clearly that it's Roth she's disgusted by.

"You have a problem with him?" Jacob asks sharply. The smirk fades from his face, and he sits up straighter.

"I have a problem with any man that thinks they can play with lives the way that man does," Evie says. "I have a problem with the kids he forces into his gang, I have a problem with him providing guns to criminals—"

"You don't know him," Jacob snaps.

"Neither do you, if you think he's a good man."

" _Fuck_ you," Jacob says. "He is a good man."

She turns on him, and her face is all sharp angles and angry lines, with something vaguely… familiar layered underneath. Jacob almost feels like he's met her somewhere before. He shakes his head and downs the rest of his drink. No point in staying here if the company is going to be this unpleasant.

"Enjoy the show," he says, with a deep, mocking bow, and then he turns around and stalks off.

The doors in the theatre have just opened, and Jacob finds his way to his seat. Roth's private box. It's still empty, so Jacob slouches down in the chair, arms crossed. This was supposed to be such a great night. This was supposed to be Roth showing him off, and instead the man had vanished as soon as they got inside, abandoning Jacob to the whims of some holier-than-though woman.

With that weirdly familiar face.

The lights dim, and Jacob glances down at his phone—he's completely lost track of time, moping here, and it's time for the performance to start. Where's Roth? It's not like him to miss the start of one of his own shows, especially on opening night. He stands, unease growing in his chest, and ducks out of the box. He'll just head upstairs and see if Roth is in his office, if he's maybe lost track of time. It's possible.

Just as long as nothing's _wrong_. Tonight might be turning out shittier than Jacob had expected, but he doesn't know what he'd do if something happened to Roth. He takes the stairs two at a time, dashes down a long hallway, bursts into Roth's office—

Freezes.

Roth isn't there, but the room isn't empty. For a second, Jacob can't even process what he's seeing. He takes a step forward, staring. The woman he'd met downstairs, Evie Frye, is standing at Roth's desk and rifling through his papers. Jacob has never been in those papers before, but he has an idea of what's in them. Details, numbers, plans, all the things that are too sensitive or too illegal to risk typing up on a computer that can be hacked.

"Get out of there," Jacob snaps. "Get out of there!"

"Jacob," Evie says. She takes half a step back, but she's still within grabbing distance of the papers, still far too close. "Listen, I know you have some connection to Roth but you have to realize he's done horrible things, he's hurt _so_ many people—"

"I will hurt you," Jacob says. He steps forward, but Evie doesn't step back. She doesn't seem at all afraid of him. "You don't know what he is to me, but if you do anything to threaten him, _I will hurt you_."

She looks at him. Looks at Roth's papers. Scowls. "I dare you," Evie says. In a single graceful movement she grabs the papers, turns on her heels and kicks at the window behind her. It's huge, at least as tall as she is, and when it swings open Evie ducks out through it.

Jacob realizes she's going to jump half a second before she actually leaps. He shouts and lunges after her but it's too late, she's _gone_ , and Jacob is left hanging out the window, staring down into the darkened street below, straining his eyes to try and catch any sign that would tell her if she'd somehow survived that. She couldn't have survived, could she? No one could survive a fall, this is four stories up, at least.

But there's something about this Evie Frye, something that keeps Jacob from trusting her. He doesn't even trust her to die like a normal person, the _bitch—_

"Jacob?" He turns around, slowly, heart in his throat, and there's Roth. "What happened?" His voice sounds cold, there's no dear or darling, none of the playful pet names Jacob has gotten so used to in the last few years. Just a disappointment so heavy Jacob can practically feel it, bearing down on him.

He takes a deep breath. "There was a woman in here," he says. "She was going through your papers. I tried to stop her but she took them, and she jumped…" he trails off, takes another gulp of air. "I'm sorry," he says. "I failed you."

"You did," Roth agrees. Jacob flinches as if struck. "Find her. If the fall killed her, find her corpse, I don't care. But find her, and bring those papers back."

"I will," Jacob says. "I swear, I will."

Roth nods. Not approval, just acknowledgment. "Don't come home until you do," he says.

"I'll fix this," Jacob says again, voice cracking. "I'll _find_ her."

"Good," Roth says. He turns, then hesitates and glances back at Jacob. "And when you do find her, make sure she pays for what she's done."

"I'll kill her," Jacob says. "I will track her down, and I will kill her."


	2. Chapter 2

(21 Years Ago)

-/-

Ethan is walking more easily when he returns home. The lines on his face are smoothing out, his shoulders are straight, and he doesn't look like he's struggling just to breathe anymore. He walks straight to the nursery (brushing past Arbaaz, who gives him a look that starts out concerned and quickly shifts into flat out alarm), and goes to the crib where Evie is sleeping peacefully.

He gathers Evie into his arms like she's something precious, hugs her gently. "It's going to be okay," he whispers. "It's going to be okay, your brother's gone. We'll be fine now."

The door opens but Ethan doesn't turn until Arbaaz comes through it and offers him a bottle. "She hasn't fed in hours," he says quietly. There is disapproval in his voice, just barely audible under the tight control he is obviously fighting to maintain. "She'll be hungry."

He sits down when Ethan takes the bottle, and waits until father and daughter are settled before speaking again. "Ethan," he says, quietly. "I really don't want to do this, but I need you to give me a reason right now why I shouldn't call the police. What did you do with the boy?"

"I left him somewhere he'll be found," Ethan says vaguely. "Churches. That's sort of the tradition for foundlings, isn't it?"

"You abandoned him?" Arbaaz demands. "You just _left_ your son?"

Ethan nods. "I know how it looks," he says. "If it were anyone else, I would have had the same reaction you're having. But I couldn't keep him, don't you see?"

"No!" Arbaaz stands again, frowning. "Tell me where you left him and I will go get him—"

"No."

"You don't have to see him," Arbaaz says. "In fact, I don't think you should. I'm not sure you should be allowed to keep Evie, after that—"

He stops under the force of the glare Ethan is giving him. Takes a breath. "Just tell me where he is."

There's a very long pause, and then Ethan says "St Clare's."

"I know the place," Arbaaz says, nodding sharply. "I'll be back tomorrow morning, alright? We're going to talk about this again."

Ethan doesn't answer, and Arbaaz doesn't seem to expect him to. He leaves the room, heading into the one next to it. This room is more reserved in decoration, a room for adults instead of children. At the moment it's a bit of a mess, but Arbaaz grabs a coat and shoes off the floor, apparently his, and slips into them. Then he turns his attention to the boy asleep on the bed.

He pulls the boy into his lap, rubbing gentle circles into his back to wake him. "Son," he says. "We have to go."

The boy wipes at his face, trying to scrub the sleep from his eyes. "Dad?" He says, then yawns hugely. "…'s the baby here yet? Can I see it?"

Arbaaz hesitates. "Not quite yet, Jay," he says.

" _Daaaad…_ "

"I know," Arbaaz says. "But we have something important to do first, okay?"

"What?"

"Uncle Ethan made a big mistake," Arbaaz says. "We have to go fix it for him."

"Isn't that why he has Aunt Cecily?" Jay asks. "Momma says she has to take care of you…can't aunt Cecily take care of Uncle Ethan?"

"She…" Arbaaz sighs. "No, Jayadeep. No, I'm afraid we won't be seeing Aunt Celia anymore."

Jay gives his father a look of absolute incomprehension. His little face—certainly no older than four, and looking much younger in the face of this serious conversation—wobbles a little. "Did something bad happen?"

"Yes," he says. "But if we are very quick, and very lucky, we might be able to fix a little piece of it. Does that sound good?"

Jay nods. "Okay."

His father lowers him to the ground and sends him after his shoes and coat. When he's ready, the two of them walk out of the house together.

Jay is quiet in the car. He sits in the car seat behind his father and watches the lights outside the window roll past. Every block or so, Arbaaz's eyes will flick to the rearview mirror, but he seems to be checking his son rather than the road behind them. Making sure that he's still there.

"You know I love you, don't you?" he asks at one point.

"Yea," Jay says.

"You know I'd never leave you anywhere?"

Jay wrinkles up his face in confusion. "Where would you leave me? I have to stay with you, dad. Or I would get lost and scared!"

"You would be, wouldn't you?" Arbaaz says, quietly. "You would be so scared…" He puts his foot down, and drives a little bit faster.

The drive to St. Clare's takes nearly twice as long as Ethan's earlier walk to St. Jacob's, and goes in the opposite direction. When they finally arrive, Arbaaz takes Jay's hand and leads him to the front door. There is no baby there, but a little group of people is just coming out. Jay waves brightly at them, and they smile back, slowing down to look at him.

"Excuse me," Arbaaz says. "This might sound horrible, but have you seen a baby here?"

"A baby?" The closest woman repeats.

"A friend of mine might have made a very bad mistake," he says. "Please, have you seen a baby?"

"No," the man next to the first woman says. "We've been in there a couple hours now, so we would have seen a baby if one had been here."

Arbaaz's shoulders slump. He opens his mouth, as if to argue, then shakes his head. "Thank you anyway."

"Good luck," one of them says, and then the whole group shuffles past them, casting sympathetic looks over their shoulders.

"Daddy—" Jay tugs at the trailing edge of his father's coat. "Daddy, is the baby missing?"

Arbaaz looks at him, and there is enough confirmation in his face to make Jay burst out crying.

He refuses to quiet, and eventually Arbaaz takes him back to the car to cry. "Do you want to go home?" he asks softly. "I know it's been a long day."

"But…" He's still crying. "But what about the _baby?_ "

"I'll go back out and look for him once I take you home," Arbaaz promises. "Mommy should be home from work by now, do you want to stay with her?"

Jay nods, miserable. "I want mommy!"

"Alright." Arbaaz straps first Jay, then himself in. "Let's go home."

Their house isn't far from Ethan's, and Arbaaz drives quickly. There's a woman sitting in the kitchen when they come in, reading something on a laptop. She smiles briefly at the pair, but the expression vanishes when she sees the drying tears on Jay's face. She hugs him when he runs over and clutches at her waist, and frowns up at Arbaaz. "What happened?"

Arbaaz sits in the chair next to her, and speaks quietly. No doubt Jay could have heard him had he been listening, but he seems wholly interested in hugging his mother as tightly as possible. "Cecily's dead, Pyara," he says. "The births went badly."

"Births?" she asks.

"Twins," Arbaaz tells her. "Which is apparently the problem, in Ethan's mind. He took the second baby somewhere and left him."

Pyara sucks in a breath. "Ethan?" she repeats, in a tone of absolute disbelief. "He wouldn't, that's just not like him."

"Exactly," Arbaaz says. "It's not, but that's what he did, and he's going to regret it when the grief isn't so fresh."

"But why do it in the first place?"

"He blames his son for killing Cecily," Arbaaz says. "I don't know. It's messy, and he lied to me when I asked where he left the boy."

"We should call the police," Pyara says.

"Not yet," Arbaaz says. "He's my friend, and he's been hurt. I don't want to make things worse for him until I'm absolutely sure I can't fix this myself."

"You said there were twins," Pyara says. "What about the other baby?"

"A girl," Arbaaz says. "Evie. Ethan doesn't seem to resent her, but we should keep an eye on them for a while. Just to be sure." Pyara nods and Arbaaz stands. He kisses her and Jay goodbye, then hurries back out of the house to return to his search.

He looks for the baby for hours without success. When he finally gives in and calls the police, he's drifted quite a way away from his starting point. And that's why he never finds Jacob.

His call goes through to the local police force. By this point, he's far enough from the hospital where Jacob will be left in the morning that this is not the same branch of the force. His anonymous description, clearly left vague enough to continue protecting Ethan, is only given a cursory investigation. The young officer that takes the call is clearly of the opinion that this is a prank call, and every time Arbaaz gives a half answer to one of his questions, he rolls his eyes and shakes his head.

"Nutter," he mutters when the call ends. He makes a few calls, files the claim away with the night's other records, and forgets about it.

The call is never connected to the baby found forty minutes away.

-/-

(Present Day)

-//-

Jacob's first instinct is to go charging after Evie, but as he has absolutely no idea where she is, that plan basically boils down to 'charge in a random direction and hope it's the right one,' which isn't likely to help much. No, Jacob is going to have to be more careful, more strategic. Roth expects Evie dealt with quickly, and Jacob is loath to disappoint him. Again. He can picture exactly what Roth's expression will look like if he finds out Jacob wasted an entire night running recklessly after nothing.

So he won't do that. He'll think this through, even though that's a horrible way to go through life. Jacob's itching to act already, to just start running, his blood is _boiling_ inside him. He fights to keep himself under control as he hurries out of the theatre to inspect the street where Evie had fallen. There might be a body, he thinks hopefully. That would be an easy way to wrap all this up. He could take the papers off her corpse, and report back to Roth that everything is under control again, it wasn't a big deal after all.

No such luck. The street here is more of an alley, a back alley where the theatre and several other nearby buildings let their trash collect until garbage pickup day. It _smells_ , which explains why no one ever uses it for anything. Even junkies and the homeless avoid it, because there is after all such a thing as having fallen too far.

Jacob wrinkles his nose and kicks his way through the loose litter collecting on the ground. There's no witnesses here, no cameras even. No evidence at all of how someone could jump out of a fourth story window and survive. He squints suspiciously up. Maybe she'd climbed? Is she some kind of acrobat?

Regardless, there's nothing and nobody here to give Jacob a clue where Evie had gone. He curses, and tries to think of a Plan B. Henry, maybe. Jacob isn't sure how much of what the two of them had told him was true, but he's pretty sure they're actually together. It's one thing to _say_ someone is your girlfriend, it's another thing entirely to look at a woman the way Henry had looked at Evie. No. They'll be in it together, and even though Evie is gone, there's a chance Henry might still be in the theatre. Jacob can loiter around the front entrance, wait for the show to end, and follow Henry when he comes out.

It's worth a chance, anyway.

But that wait is _long_. The show had only just started when Jacob went looking for Roth and found Evie. It hadn't taken that much longer to finish his cursory examination of the street under where Evie had jumped, so there will be at least another two hours of waiting before the first audience members start to leave.

Jacob sets himself up just across the street in a patch of shadow where a light has burned out, and takes out his phone. In the _three_ hours (not two, as he'd been expecting, but three—it had taken ages for the last stragglers to wander out) it takes for him to be sure Henry is not coming out, he manages to get several messages out. He texts every contact he has, asking for whatever information they might have on this Evie and her Henry. Most of them don't reply, but one or two call him crazy. _Do you know how many Evies and Henrys there are in this city_? One of them asks. Jacob immediately texts him back with last names ( _damn_ , another mistake—he should have included that in the first place), but there's no response.

It's not until the lights in the theatre start shutting off, and Jacob realizes that Henry must have left earlier, around the same time as Evie, that Jacob finally gets a helpful answer. Just not from someone he'd expected. He's really starting to get frustrated when his phone chimes and Jacob glances down to see a new message.

…From his bookie.

Robert Topping is a decent enough guy, particularly to Jacob. He's always been a shade more lenient with Jacob than he probably should be. More than once, Jacob has seen his debts mysteriously disappear, and he knows he has Robert to thank. They've never really discussed it, but there's a sort of unspoken understanding between them Robert will continue to occasionally forgive Jacob's debts, as long as Jacob keeps fighting in Robert's underground fight club.

Which of course he will, because _fight club_. Obviously. Besides, Roth will show up to watch from time to time, and there are certainly worse ways Jacob can spend his time than shirtless and showing off in front of Roth.

Jacob has no time to think about fight clubs tonight, though. He needs to stay focused on finding Evie, and while beating another man senseless will no doubt make him feel better, it won't help him in the long run. If anything, it will only give Evie more of a chance to run.

He swipes his phone open, just to tell Robert he won't be available to do anything tonight, and stops, staring at the screen in surprise. There's a picture of Evie there, at one of Robert's fight clubs. Jacob recognizes the place, a warehouse very close to the one he'd burned down earlier. He studies Evie for a moment—in the picture, she's wearing shorts, a sports bra, and a fierce scowl—and wonders if she actually fights. He's never seen her around before, but he's also not a fan of the mixed gender fights when Robert runs those. There's just something inherently less impressive about beating up a girl, in Jacob's opinion. Let them pull each other's hair, or whatever it is girls do when they fight—Jacob prefers to fight men, because at least then he knows he'll be getting a real challenge.

That's not the point just now, though. The _point_ is that Robert knows Evie. He might know where she lives, even. Another text comes through, and Jacob's eyes flicks down to the message.

_Word is you're looking for her. Fancy coming down for a fight this evening?_

Jacob grins, a cocky smirk so big it hurts his face, and sends a reply as quickly as he can manage, fingers flying over his phone's keyboard.

_I'd love a fight. Send me where and when._

The information comes up so quickly that Jacob assumes Robert had been sitting with his finger hovering over the send button, message already typed. Jacob knows the place well, it's the same warehouse as the one where Evie had been in the picture Robert had sent Jacob. He sticks his phone in his back pocket and takes off running—but only makes it as far as the next corner before freezing.

…Isn't this kind of a coincidence? Being the same warehouse, and all. Jacob had assumed Robert was just going to give him an address or something, then send him on his way after a round or two. But what if this is a picture from today? What if Evie is there right now?

Jacob starts running again, faster now. He has to catch her, he has to.

It seems to take forever to get there, and Jacob is surprised to see Robert waiting for him outside the warehouse. Normally the man prefers to stay inside, personally overseeing the fights. He gestures Jacob over as soon as he sees him, an uncharacteristic frown etched across his face. "I don't know what you want Frye for," he says. "But—"

"Is she in there?" Jacob demands.

Robert's frown gets deeper at the interruption. "Yes," he says. "She is, but—Jacob!"

"Out of my way, Robert," Jacob snarls. "I'm warning you, I'm not in a mood to be fucked with."

"You know the rules," Robert says, grabbing at Jacob's arm. Jacob knows he could break away, or break the arm for that matter, but he knows Robert always keeps guards discreetly posted around on nights when he runs fight clubs. No doubt if Jacob breaks his arm, he'll find himself suddenly facing a whole group of armed men. Reluctantly, he steps back. Robert brushes himself off. "You can't kill her," he says. "We don't fight to the death here."

" _Robert_. You're being unreasonable."

"Kill her later," Robert says. "I'll be sorry to see one of my top fighters go, but I know you well enough to know there's no stopping you when you get an idea in your mind." He looks at Jacob, and Jacob thinks there might be just a shade of fear in his expression. "Just remember, I was the one that told you where she is."

"Fat lot of good that does me," Jacob says. "I need her dead."

"So follow her home," Robert says. "I don't care, Jacob, just don't kill her in the ring!" he sounds exasperated. "It's the first rule of my fight club."

"I thought that was 'don't talk about fight club'."

Robert gives him the flat, tired look of a man who has heard that joke far too many times already, and had never thought it was funny in the first place. "No," he says. "It's don't kill your opponent or you'll be banned for life. I don't care _who_ you're sleeping with, or how powerful he is."

"Fine," Jacob says. "Can you at least set up a fight between me and her?"

"I was hoping you'd ask," Robert says, brightening a little. "So I've already arranged things. This will be a fight to remember."

"Sure," Jacob says, following Robert as he turns and heads inside. He doesn't have any particular concern that Evie will be able to get the better of him. How well can a girl like that possibly fight?

He makes a beeline for the rooms Robert sets aside for fighters, and makes the preparations he needs to. His clothes aren't made for a fighting ring, so he pulls off his coat and shirt and tosses them aside. When he'd dressed earlier, he'd expected a quiet evening at the theatre. His pants are too stiff to fight in, so Jacob sheds those too and steals a pair of gym shorts someone has left behind. Gross, but hardly his biggest concern right now. Finally, he kicks off his dress shoes and pulls off his socks. He'd rather not fight barefoot, but he can. Most of what Jacob knows of fighting, he learned on the streets, and on the streets _anything_ goes. He's sure he can handle fighting in his bare feet.

When this is done, he heads back to the main ring, and waits with the rest of the crowd for Robert to announce his fight. He scans the crowds impatiently for Evie, but can't see her. Impatient, Jacob bounces up and down on the soles of his feet, cracking his knuckles and thinking hard.

So he can't kill her. His best plan would be to keep away, try to follow her home and take care of her there, where it's private and no one will see. But Jacob has never been as good at stealth as he is at punching things, and anyway he's itching to hit her. Blood pounds in his ears and he feels like he's going to burst if he doesn't get to take his anger out immediately—

And on cue, one of the fighters in the ring knocks out his opponent. The crowd roars, triumph and loss in one wordless tidal wave of noise, and only Robert's booming voice is clearly audible over the general noise. He announces the name of the victor, makes a few comments on the match, and then starts pumping the crowd for the next fight.

He calls Jacob's name.

He calls Evie's.

Jacob steps into the ring and— _yes_ , there she is, appearing like smoke out of the shadows on the other side of the crowd. The second take she does when she sees him, the little flinch backward and the way her eyes go wide, is like a rush of triumph running through Jacob. She hadn't expected him here, _he has her._

"Sixty seconds left to place your bets!" Robert booms. "Odds stand at four to one in favor of Evie Frye."

For a second, this announcement completely knocks everything else out of Jacob's head, even Roth. He turns sideways to stare at Robert, slack jawed like an idiot, because he has never before found himself the underdog in a fight. Definitely not against a _girl_. Jacob is used to the odds being in his favor, usually heavily so, and he's not sure if he should be offended or nervous about this.

He looks back at Evie, and sees that her face has shifted into an unreadable mask. She's probably laughing at him in her head, thinking that she'd already outsmarted him once tonight, and that this can't be much harder. Doesn't matter. He'll show her, he'll show _everyone_.

The fight starts and the crowd roars to life, cheering and jeering. Evie hangs back but Jacob runs in swinging. She dodges his first several hits, darting away from every enthusiastic swing, and then tries to push him away. Jacob manages to grab one arm as it comes toward him. She stumbles, off balance, but recovers quickly. While Jacob is watching her arms she kicks out, and one foot hitting him hard on the shin. _She's_ wearing shoes, so it hurts.

Jacob lets go and they fall apart, watching one another warily. She's watching his feet—Jacob feints left and she dodges away, right into Jacob's arm as he hits her as hard as he can across the side of the head. She grunts in pain (music to his ears) and stumbles back, all the way to the edge of the ring. The crowd pushes her back toward Jacob and he smirks at her. Four to one in her favor—this isn't even hard.

"Brute," Evie says. She spits out a mouthful of blood and shakes her head as if to clear it.

"Bitch," he snarls.

She raises her eyebrows, clearly unimpressed (Jacob _is_ impressed, though—already she looks steadier on her feet). "I've been called worse," she says, and for the first time goes on the offense.

Jacob knows her head must still be throbbing, but she moves like lightning toward him across the ring. She darts past his defenses, kicking and punching and then disappearing when he tries to turn and face her. He lashes out, feels one or two hits connect, but they're weak and off target. She shakes them off, she keeps hitting—

Until suddenly the blows stop.

It takes Jacob a second too long to figure out why this is. Then he realizes all at once that he's on the ground, bruised and seriously in pain, and Robert is shouting out the name of the winner to the roars of an appreciative crowd.

"Evie Frye!" he shouts. "For the win!"

She bends over him, offering a hand. Jacob slaps her away and she stands again, frowning. "I don't know how you found me," she says. "But you need to stop. Leave me alone."

Jacob wants to stay where he is, lying on the ground and aching all over, but his pride demands that he sit up. So he does, a half dozen new sore points announcing themselves as he does so. "I need those papers back," he says.

"No." She scowls and crosses her arms. "I'm looking for someone, and this is as good a lead as any."

"I don't _care_ who you're looking for," Jacob says. "Leave Roth alone."

"Or what?" she asks, looking significantly down at him.

"Or—" he can't exactly threaten her. Not here, not half sprawled out on the ground and covered with bruises the same general shape as her fists. He breaks—turns away and doesn't answer.

"I thought as much," Evie says, and walks away without another word. Jacob struggles to his feet and slinks out of the ring in the opposite direction.

He doesn't stay for the rest of the fights, but goes back in search of his clothes. He's half-dressed when Robert comes in. Clearly, the night's entertainments are over. "What was that about?" Jacob demands. He takes a step toward Robert and instantly regrets it as his bruises sing. "You knew she would beat me—you set me up!"

"I wanted a good fight," Robert says flatly. "Tonight's take was ten times higher than it would have been if you hadn't shown up."

"You warned me not to kill her," Jacob says. "You let me think she'd be a pushover."

"You're an egoist, Jacob," Robert says. "You would have believed it no matter what I said. And I'm sure you _can_ kill her. You're creative. Go after her with knives, with fire, with a gun. I'm sure you will, after tonight. But I wanted my fight first. Now that I've had it…" He shrugs and leans back against the wall, arms crossed. "Ask me anything. I've known Evie quite a while now. Consider it payment for tonight's debacle."

Jacob wants to hit him, but not as much as he wants to hit Evie. He swallows his pride—it's not as difficult as usual. He doesn't have much of it left. "Why does she fight?" he asks. "Money? Does she have something to prove?"

"She's angry," Robert says. "She's been looking for someone for longer than I've known her, and she can't find them. So she comes here to get rid of that anger."

"But she won tonight," Jacob says. "She came to the Alhambra to steal from Roth, and she got exactly what she wanted. Why would she be angry?"

"Ah, well…" Robert shrugs. "I never said she tells me _everything_. Maybe tonight was a celebration."

"Who is she looking for?" Jacob asks.

"Some missing family, I think," Robert says. "Father, brother—I don't know. Her boyfriend kind of drops hints from time to time, but she's a private person. I never got the full story."

"The boyfriend," Jacob says. "Henry—"

"Jayadeep," Robert interrupts.

"Excuse me?"

"Henry Green is an alias," Robert says. "His real name is Jayadeep Mir, but he stopped using it…" he thinks for a second. "Oh, maybe three or four years ago."

"Why?"

"Maybe he likes it better," Robert says. " _I_ don't know. There were rumors about some trouble with the police, but I never heard anything concrete."

"Seems like there's a lot you don't know," Jacob says. "Considering you just offered me information, I'm not very impressed."

"Hang on," Robert says quickly. "I do have one piece of information I think you'll really like."

Jacob waits as Robert pulls a piece of paper out of his back pocket and hands it over—when he looks down and sees what it says, he lets out a low whistle. "Is this her address?" he demands. "This is where she lives?"

"It's Green's shop," Robert says. "They both work there."

"Good enough," Jacob says. He closes his fist tight over the paper and brushes roughly past Robert on the way out. "Good enough."


	3. Chapter 3

(11 Years Ago)

-//-

A girl lies alone, curled up in bed and sleeping soundly. The room around her is neat, but nearly bursting with personality. Ribbons and awards hang from a board on the wall and crowd the shelves over the desk. There's a great variety in these awards—the casual observer might see school attendance awards, sports awards, even academic awards. This is clearly a girl that will try anything, and will put her best effort into every single thing that she tries.

Two bookshelves, stuffed full to bursting, squat on either side of the door. The books are an unorganized mess of subjects and reading levels that range from much loved and well-read pictures books to heavy books on history and science that would likely have been beyond most children of this age.

The table next to the girls bed is the only place where clutter has been allowed free reign. A handful of trinkets have been carefully arranged here; ticket stubs from movies, a snow globe bought from a trip abroad, a handful of dried flowers. There are pictures too, some set in frames and others left loose. One or two are of places or groups of people, but most of them show the same three people over and over again.

First is the girl, as might be expected. This is her room and her pictures, and in nearly every one she beams at the camera, smiling up from whatever situation she's being photographed in. The second is unmistakably Ethan Frye—his face has aged in the ten years since the birth of his children and the abandonment of his son, but he is still easily identifiable. The third person is a boy, three or four years older than this girl, but smiling just as enthusiastically as she is in every picture in which he appears.

There are no pictures showing this boy and Ethan Frye together, although both appear often with the girl.

It is still dark out when the shouting starts. A door slams from somewhere else in the house, followed by the sound of two men in a heated argument. The girl sits up, rubbing sleepily at her face, and wraps her blanket around her shoulders. She ignores the argument, sliding out of bed and padding across the room to her window. Her bare feet shuffle across the carpet, blanket dragging behind her, and she opens the window wide.

She steps back as a boy—immediately recognizable as the one in the pictures on her bedside table—tumbles through. "Careful!" she scolds in a whisper, leaning down to help him up. "Did you hit your head?"

"I have a hard head," he says, accepting her offered help.

"That's not a no," she says, standing on her toes to try and see the back of his head. "Are you okay? Jay—"

"I'm fine, Evie," he says, gently steering her back to her bed. She sits down with her back against the wall, and Jay sits on the opposite end, cross legged and calm. Evie, by contrast, is nearly vibrating with excitement.

"Did you bring me a present?" she asks.

"On your birthday?" He feigns shock and she grins, leaning forward to whack him gently on the knee. "Why would I bring you a present on your birthday?"

" _Jay_ …"

He hands her a small, thin present wrapped in bright paper. Evie takes it with a smile and a quick thank you, but instead of unwrapping it she sets it on her lap. For a moment they are both silent, listening to the muffled argument.

"Do you think your dad will win this year?" Evie asks after a while. "Do you think he'll convince my dad to tell me?"

"No," Jay says. "You know how stubborn your dad is."

"But you'll tell me, right?" Evie asks. "Can you tell me again, Jay?"

He nods like he'd been expecting this, and maybe he has. Every indication is that this is not a new event, but something that happens regularly. Evie inches forward eagerly. "One day," he begins. "Nine years ago—"

" _Ten_ years," Evie interrupts. "Ten years, I'm ten!"

"Ten years ago," Jay agrees, laughing. "My dad told me we were going on a special trip, because his friends needed help with something very important. I didn't know it yet, but those friends were your parents. And they were going to have a baby." He pauses dramatically, then says, " _Two_ babies."

"Two babies," Evie echoes, her voice barely a whisper. She pulls her blanket more tightly around herself.

"My mom was at work, so I had to go with dad," Jay says. "We were there for a really long time. I could hear a woman screaming. It started out loud, but then it got quieter and quieter, until after a long time I couldn't hear her at all. Later, I found out that she had died."

Evie nods, suddenly sad.

"But the babies lived," Jay says. "Both of them. A girl and a boy, and the girl was named Evie. But the boy didn't have a name. Your father was angry at him, he said it was the boy's fault that his mother had died. My father argued with him but in the end he couldn't win. Your dad left with the baby, and when he came back..." He draws the pause out dramatically, although by the expression on Evie's face, she knows exactly where this is going. "He came back alone.

"My parents looked for him for a long, long time, but they never found out anything at all. He could be anywhere. He could be right next door, or in London, or in a whole different country. Maybe he's gone. Maybe he died. We might never know, but it's important to remember him."

"I wish he _was_ next door," Evie says. "But it's only stupid Mrs. Moore and her stupid cats over there." She pouts and Jay frowns with her. "I wish I could find him. I wish your story could have a different ending one year."

Maybe one day," Jay says. "You never know." He nudges her. "But I think you should you should open your present now."

She shrugs and unwraps it without any real enthusiasm, picking the paper apart rather than tearing at it. Then suddenly, as the last of it comes off, her whole body jerks to attention. It almost looks like she's been hit by lightning, and she pulls Jay's present closer to her face so she can see it better. From the back, the only thing visible is a cheap plastic picture frame, but whatever picture has been put there has Evie apparently enthralled. At last, she tears her gaze away and looks up at Jay. "Where did you get this?" she demands.

Jay laughs aloud. "From 'stupid Mrs. Moore.'" Evie colors. "Did you know she used to be a midwife?"

Evie wordlessly shakes her head no.

"She was," he says. "And she delivered you and your brother."

Evie tilts the picture down a little, showing a picture of two infants, a boy and a girl, curled up together in a crib. Both of them are fast asleep and tightly pressed together. Like nothing else matters in the world but hanging onto each other and never letting go. "Why did she take a picture?" she demands.

"I don't know."

"Why didn't she ever give it to me before?"

"I don't know."

"Well why didn't she _tell_ anyone?"

"I don't know!" Jay says, in that exasperated tone that belongs entirely to teenagers. "Because adults are all stupid, I guess."

Evie makes a little grunting noise. She hugs the picture close to her chest, then peeks down at it again, almost guiltily. "Maybe I should help Mrs. Moore feed her cats tomorrow," she says quietly. "She's always asking. Dad says she's lonely. And… she was nice to give this to you for me." She nods, apparently making up her mind. "And then after I go see Mrs. Moore, I'm going to find my brother. I don't care _where_ he is, I don't care _what_ I have to do. I'm going to find him."

"Maybe," Jay says cautiously. "There's nothing to find."

"You mean he might be dead?" She looks momentarily startled, then shakes her head. "He's out there. I know he is. Don't you… don't you think he must be?"

Jay scoots across the bed toward her and wraps her in a tight hug. "Happy birthday, Evie," he says, which is not an answer at all.

"Jay?"

"What?"

"Do you think my brother has anyone to say happy birthday to him?"

Jay hesitates. There are no more than a handful of years between them, but that difference is starkly visible in this moment. Evie is still a child, and her view of the world is filtered through the information others allow her to have. A child of this age, in a sheltered home like this, has no reason to doubt that all stories begin with  _once upon a time_ and end with  _happily ever after_. Jay is a little older, still a boy but teetering right on the edge. His body is stretched out and ill-fitting in that awkward manner of teenagers, and it is clear that he has just started to understand the full extent of the dark things in this world.

"Yes," he says, and Evie does not look up at his face to see the lie there. "I'm sure that wherever he is, he's having a wonderful birthday."

She clings to him for a second, then lets him go. "You should go back outside before my dad comes in," she says. "I don't want you to get in trouble."

He nods and hurries out the window, closing it softly behind him. Evie looks down at the picture again, a big, stupid smile stretching itself across her face. "Happy birthday," she whispers to the still image of her brother. "Wherever you are."

Footsteps hurry toward the room, and Evie just barely has time to hide the picture under her pillow before her Ethan opens the door. He looks momentarily surprised, and says, "You're awake."

"I heard shouting," Evie says, in a voice that is entirely too innocent to be believable. "Were you having an argument?"

"No," Ethan says shortly.

"But I heard—"

"Arbaaz came by," Ethan says. "He brought Jay. And cake."

"Cake?"

"Jay's waiting in the car with it," Ethan tells her. "Hurry up and get dressed, and you can see him and have some cake before school."

"Okay." She gets out of bed again, but instead of getting dressed she hugs Ethan around the middle. "Are you sure you're okay, dad?"

For a second, he seems to waver. He opens his mouth, indecision raging across his face. His almost seems like he's about to spill everything… and then he doesn't. Instead his face goes softer, and he hugs her back. "I'm fine, Evie. Just thinking about grownup things."

"Anything you want to tell me about?" she asks hopefully.

"No," he says. "No, Evie, I don't want you to worry. Just enjoy your birthday. It's… nothing you need to know about."

"If you're sure…"

"Positive." He kisses the top of her head. "I love you."

"Love you too, dad."

-//-

(Present Day)

-//-

Jacob wakes up aching all over, and stares blearily at the grimy ceiling of his apartment. His phone is ringing in his ear, and Jacob turns his head sideways to see who's calling. It's a number instead of a name, and Jacob has no intention of dealing with telemarketers or wrong numbers this early in the morning. He lets the call ring out, and shuts his eyes again. It had been nearly two in the morning when he finally stumbled into his apartment from the fight club, too tired and sore to go after Evie immediately. Besides, he only has the address of her place of work, it's doubtful she'll be there in the middle of the night. So Jacob had gone back to the apartment instead, and fallen into bed—or onto the ancient mattress that serves as his bed—and slept like the dead.

Not five seconds after the phone goes quiet, it starts ringing again. The sheer annoyance of the ringtone in his ear is what makes him answer, he can't put up with it for another second. His arm feels like lead even from the negligible effort of lifting his phone to his ear, and Jacob mentally curses Evie Frye for the millionth of time. He knows he must have had a beating this bad before, but he can't remember exactly when. It must have been years ago.

" _What_?" he demands. "What do you want? It's early."

"It's nearly noon," says the voice on the other end, and Jacob jumps as he recognizes it as Evie's. How does she have his number? And why is she calling him?

"Yea, well—" Jacob heaves himself up so he's leaning against the wall. His heart pounds like he's back in the ring, like he expects Evie to punch him through the phone. "Shockingly, I didn't sleep well last night. How did you get this number?"

"Robert gave it to me after the fight," Evie says. Jacob almost protests that Robert had helped _him_ , giving him the address where Evie and Henry work. Then he stops himself. He doesn't want her to know he has information on her, too, that would be giving away his only advantage. "He said it was only fair," Evie goes on. "Because he gave you the shop's address, and you hadn't even won."

Well, so much for that.

"Why did you want to call me?" Jacob demands. "Crisis of conscience, maybe? Do you want to give Roth's papers back?" He rubs at a particularly sore spot on his side. "Maybe apologize for kicking the shit out of me?"

"No," Evie says. "But I do have some more information I'd like to get from him, and I thought you might want to help."

"You want me to betray Roth?" Jacob demands. He has to hold the phone tighter to keep from dropping it. "Are you stupid? Why would I do that?" Roth takes care of him. Roth has saved him more times than Jacob can count.

"Listen," Evie says. "Jacob."

Something in his stomach falls. He doesn't _like_ her knowing his name. He doesn't like the way she says it, like a mother scolding a naughty child. "I don't _want_ to listen," he says, and now he's whining as well. Evie ignores him.

"I understand that Roth has been kind to you," she says. "But there are so many more people he has hurt. Children, Jacob. Children. He uses them to run drugs for him, sometimes to deliver weapons. He finds orphans and foundlings, convinces them that he can offer them more than they can get from being alone on the streets. It's wrong, and he needs to be stopped." Her voice is utterly matter of fact. In her mind, this isn't merely opinion, it is inarguable truth, without room for argument. "He ruins their innocence, he takes everything they have. He uses them, and then he destroys them."

Jacob sighs. Melodramatically, because he is still in a very bad mood and not really inclined to have a lengthy conversation with the woman that had beaten the shit out of him less than twelve hours before. "Do you know the date?" he asks, in the best approximation of a normal tone he can manage at the moment.

"The date?"

"The date, yes," he says. "It's November something, what's the something?"

"The ninth," she says, obviously confused.

It hits him like a punch to the gut. The _ninth_ , really? He's used to everyone else forgetting, but he's never missed his own birthday before. Well, at least it will make this next bit of his rant all the more dramatic.

"Twenty one years ago," he says. "Twenty one years ago _tonight_ , someone left me on the steps of a church in Crawley. I was less than a day old, and it almost killed me." He hears the sharp intake of breath that greets these words, and smiles viciously. He's gotten really good at pulling sympathy out of people—his start in life hasn't given him much, but it has at least given him the ability to wrap a certain type of woman around his little finger.

"The bastard that left me never came forward," Jacob comes on, merciless, relentless. "So I spent my childhood being shuffled from one place to another. I've lived in all kinds of places, Evie. Overcrowded homes with more kids than beds. Shitholes with big men that wanted a kid around for the check they got out of it, and for the fun of pushing around someone half their size. Nice places, sometimes—you get these self-righteous pricks that think they can give a kid new clothes and nice toys and it'll just—" He chokes up for a second, surprised by the surge of emotion that suddenly pushes tears into his voice. Those self-righteous pricks, the ones that had brought him into their homes, given him things, lavished him with attention and care… they had shone like _angels_ for a much younger Jacob. They had been his first experience of hope. He forces himself to go on, although his voice is rougher now. "They think it'll just erase every bad thing that happened before, they think it'll fix every problem, make him the perfect kid they always wanted. And then he messes up and that’s it, they want nothing to do with him."

He takes a breath, then another. Each controlled breath drives the tears farther away. "I met Roth when I was eighteen. He was the first one that cared. _Ever_. I was one of those kids you're so worried about, one of those poor, _poor_ foundlings." His words bite—he hopes they hurt her. "And Roth was the best thing that ever happened to me. He'll get mad when I mess up—" Like last night. "But I can always fix it, and he'll care about me again." So far, at least. _So far_ , Jacob has always been able to fix things. He will never stop being afraid that Roth will get tired of him and leave. "He cares about me, and that's more than anyone else has ever done."

Silence stretches between them. Jacob is about to hang up, and then Evie says something so quietly he can't make out a word. "What?"

"I said… happy birthday."

It throws him. That is not the reaction he'd been expecting, and Evie takes the moment to go on, rushing to get the words out now. "Jacob," she says. "Jacob you really need to listen to me for a second—"

No, he doesn't, because suddenly there's a knock on the door and only one person ever comes to visit Jacob here. _Roth_. Heart hammering in his chest, he hangs up on Evie and tosses the phone onto his pillow.

He knows he looks a mess, but he makes only a half-hearted effort to smooth down his hair and compose himself as he hurries to the door. Roth has already seen him at his absolute worst and hadn't minded. Surely some bedhead and a few bruises won't drive him away.

As always when he opens the door and finds Roth standing there, Jacob is hit with a moment where he doesn't quite believe this is real. It can't be. Someone like Roth doesn't belong somewhere like this.

"Jacob, darling." Roth smiles at him, just a little. Jacob melts, just a lot. "You look awful."

He colors, and opens the door wider. "Do you want to come in?"

Roth accepts the invitation, and he sits down on his usual chair. There's not a lot of furniture here, nothing more than Jacob's ragged mattress, his folding table, and two mismatched chairs. Everything else Jacob owns, which is not much, has been thrown carelessly onto the floor. But even with these limited resources, Jacob never touches Roth's chair when Roth isn't there. It just stays by the window, waiting for Roth to fill it again.

Jacob's phone is ringing again, but it's Evie's number on the caller ID and he doesn't want to talk to her. He hits ignore and then shuts the phone off altogether. "I have a lead," he says when Roth says nothing. "The woman who took your papers was at my usual fight club last night. I heard about it and went after her, but she—" Roth has clearly seen the damage Evie has left on Jacob, the bruises she has scattered all along his body. He stares at the most visible ones, and frowns. "She was stronger than me," Jacob admits. "But I have an address. I know where she works."

"Do you?" Roth asks, in some surprise.

"Yes," Jacob says. He draws himself up, tries to sound sure of himself. "I am certain that I will have your papers for you by the end of the day.

Roth springs to his feet and embraces Jacob. It's such a relief that for a moment Jacob doesn't know what to do—by the time he has pulled himself together well enough to reach up to hug Roth back, Roth has kissed his cheek and pulled away again. "Excellent," he says. "Excellent, Jacob! You will kill her, of course?"

"Of course."

"Hmm." For a second, Roth stares again at Jacob's bruising. "Are you sure you can?"

"I'll burn her," Jacob says at once. He'd gone to sleep nursing visions of revenge. He has a plan, and that plan doesn't involve Roth doubting him. "I'll burn the whole shop down. I won't have to fight her at all."

"And you've always liked fire." Roth smiles and nods. "That will work perfectly, dear boy." He's already heading back to the door, and Jacob watches helplessly, powerless to stop him. "Come find me at home when you have my papers back." He steps through and closes the door behind him.

"I will," Jacob says. But Roth is already gone, and does not hear.

There is nothing else for it but to put his plans into motion as quickly as possible. Jacob dresses, taking care to wear loose clothing that will hide the long knife he plans to hide under his clothes, then heads out.

Instead of going straight for the address Robert had given him, Jacob makes a stop a few blocks away. He knows some of the local kids here, and recruiting one of them would make certain parts of his plans much easier. The fact that these kids are some of the orphans Evie is so concerned about, some of Roth's youngest and most recent recruits, is mere icing on the cake.

Jacob finds Clara first, and sighs. She's not going to help him, he knows that already. Clara… well, Clara has altogether too much in common with Evie, from what Jacob knows of the two of them. She's only just turned ten, but she acts as a sort of mother hen toward most of the younger kids, watching out for them and steering them away from getting into too much trouble. Still, it's worth asking.

"Clara!" he calls.

She looks up from the book she's buried her nose in, and gives him a cautious nod. "Church," she says.

"It's Jacob."

Clara rolls her eyes. "Jacob," she says. "Whatever. Do you need something?"

"I'm going to do something very illegal and destructive," he says. "And I need someone to help. Know anyone that might be interested?"

The flat look she gives him says it all. That she's tired of questions like this, that she doesn't particularly like him… that it's not something she has the energy to fight just now.

"You could try asking Jack," she says, without enthusiasm.

"Jack," Jacob repeats, in the same tone. Even by his standards, Jack is weird. A real wildcard. He's six years old, and fascinated by dead things. Jacob knows he'd come close to be put into a children's mental hospital after his teacher caught him pulling the wings off a dead crow behind his school. Lucky for Jack, he has no parents, and no one to pay for that.

"He'll do whatever you tell him to," Clara says, when Jacob hesitates. "You know he idolizes you."

"I showed him how to set a fire _once_ ," Jacob grumbles. "And he hasn't left me alone since."

As if he's been waiting for his cue, a boy appears in the doorway of the nearest building. He spots Jacob and his whole face lights up. "Jacob!" he shouts. "Jacob, Jacob!"

"Jack," Jacob says, carefully stepping away as Jack runs up to him. The boy doesn't seem to notice, bouncing up and down as a stream of words bursts out of him. "Did you come to see me, Jacob? Can we do something fun? Are we going to set more stuff on fire?"

" _Maybe_ ," Jacob says. "But only if you swear you'll listen to me and do exactly as I tell you."

"I swear," Jack says, with all the fervor a six-year-old is capable of. He looks up at Jacob, hopeful and excited and openly adoring, and for a second Jacob feels for him. Jack is an ugly child. A little too round in all the wrong places, and sporting a jagged scar across one cheek from an accident with a knife when he was too young to even walk. When he laughs it sounds like a pig snorting, and he almost always smells like the dead things he likes to play with.

But the expression on his face when he sees Jacob looks the same as Jacob feels when he sees Roth.

"Come on," he says, sighing and gesturing at Jack to follow him. "We need to pick up a few supplies, alright? This isn't going to be a complicated fire. You can probably set it up yourself if you still remember the stuff I showed you last time."

"I do!" Jack says. "Promise, I can help."

"Great," Jacob says. Jack puffs up his chest in pride. "So here's what's going to happen. I need to burn a shop down. But I also need to get some papers from the woman that works there first. Do not—" he stops, turns, and grabs Jack by the shoulders. He looks right at him, schooling his face into the sternest expression he can muster. "Do not, do not, do _not_ start the actual fire until I text you and tell you it's time, or you'll probably kill the both of us. Do you understand?"

"I understand," Jack says.

"Repeat it back to me."

Jack dutifully does so, word for word.

Jacob nods. "You still have your phone? Same number?"

Jack pulls an ancient flip phone out of his pocket and sort of waves it in Jacob's face. Its bright pink and covered in dirt, and looks like it's had multiple owners before Jack. "Yep."

"Okay," Jacob allows, easing back and starting to walk again. "If you do this right, do you remember how much time you have to get out?"

"Fifteen seconds," Jack says promptly.

"Can you count to fifteen?"

Jack gives him a look. "I'm _six_ ," he says. "I'm not a baby."

Yes he is. He picks his nose and sucks his thumb and sleeps with a stuffed cow he calls Moo Moo. Jacob decides not to get into a fight about it. "Do you remember what happens if you take more than fifteen seconds to get out?"

"I die in a fiery explosion," Jack says. "Hey, you said you have to get some stuff from some woman. Is _she_ going to die in a fiery explosion?"

"That's the plan," Jacob says.

"Cool," Jack mutters, and after that he goes mercifully silent.

It's not a very long walk to the shop, but Jack is short and pudgy and has trouble keeping up. He falls into a shuffling kind of run, skipping occasionally to match Jacob's longer strides. Jacob briefly considers slowing down, but honestly he just wants to get this over with. When they finally arrive, Jacob has to help Jack break in through the back window. He passes the supplies through after him, hoping this is a good idea. It's not a good feeling, knowing his life is in the hands of a kid that sets ants on fire just for the fun of watching them panic.

But this is for Roth, so Jacob puts aside his misgivings and goes in. He needs Jack, like it or not—the fire needs to be set as soon as Jacob gets the papers back from Evie, to make sure she'll definitely be inside. Jacob can't be in two places at once, so Jack is unfortunately vital.

A bell over the door jingles as Jacob opens it, and he looks around to see a curio shop stuffed to the gills with unusual merchandise. It looks like the kind of place that would have fascinated Jacob when he was a child—now he has eyes only for Evie.

She's standing behind the shop's counter, looking absolutely frozen in place. So far, Jacob has only seen her in the formal clothes she'd worn to the theatre, and then the fighting gear she'd kicked his ass in last night. Today she's wearing a dark hoodie and jeans, and it makes her look somehow smaller. Younger—it hits Jacob for the for the first time that she's probably very close to his age. Or maybe she just looks young because she's obviously been crying. Her eyes are red when she looks up at Jacob, and she stares at him like she can't believe he's really there. Something complicated flashes across her face, and she says, "Jacob?"

He doesn't say anything. Instead, he walks over to the counter and—without breaking eye contact, pulls out the knife he'd hidden under his clothes earlier. It is long and sharp, and glitters when he lays it out on the counter between them.

Evie glances down at it and shudders involuntarily. "Jacob," she whispers. "Please, don't."

Dimly, Jacob realizes something is wrong. From what he's seen so far of Evie, she's struck him as fiercely stubborn and strongly defensive of her own opinions. Now she seems changed, shrunken. If they'd climbed into another fighting ring at this moment, Jacob is fairly sure Evie would stand there and take it while he beat her to a pulp. She wouldn't even try to fight back.

But whatever is bothering Evie takes a backseat to Jacob's entirely justifiable concern that Jack might not be able to hold off setting fire to the place until Jacob gets out. He can't afford to linger. Besides, she'll be dead soon, and beyond worrying about anything.

"Is there anyone else in here?" he asks. His voice comes out quieter than he'd expected, and far more serious.

"No," Evie says.

"Not even Henry?"

She shakes her head. "He'll be in at noon."

"Good," Jacob says. No reason anyone else has to die here today. If nothing else, it lowers the odds that someone will escape the fire and be able to place him at the shop later. "I need the papers you stole from Roth yesterday."

She pulls them out without even arguing, and lays them out next to Jacob's knife. Jacob looks down at them, but he's not sure how much she took. It looks about right, though. "Jacob," she says. She keeps saying his name, and it's making Jacob irrationally _angry_. She doesn't know him, she's just a target. "We—we really need to talk."

Jacob ignores her. "Did you make copies?" he asks, snatching them away.

"No. But _Jacob_ —"

"Did anyone else see what's on them?"

"Henry saw a page or two," Evie says. "But he hasn't looked at them in detail. Jacob, I really need to tell you something—"

A fresh throb of anger pulses through Jacob, radiating through him from every bruise she'd left on him the night before. He pulls his hand back and hits her, hard, across the face. Evie makes a noise that is as much surprise as pain, and then staggers a step or two back. One hand goes to her face in disbelieving shock. Then she shakes her head and goes right back to her attempts to talk to him. "I swear," she says, and her voice is shaking now. "It's important."

"I don't care." Jacob tucks the papers safely into his pocket, then snatches up his knife and hides it away again. He turns on his heel and hurries toward the door (is it his imagination, or can he smell smoke? _Damn_ , Jack). Evie calls after him, her words increasingly desperate, but Jacob ignores her.

He leaves the shop, pulling out his phone the second he's back on the street. The message to Jack is short and simple ( _Go_ ), and as soon as it's sent, Jacob starts counting in his head. He crosses the street, and his mental count has just reached thirteen, when he hears Evie call his name one last time. There is so much pain there, so much raw, unexpected emotion, that Jacob cannot stop himself from turning around.

Evie is standing in the doorway of the shop, facing him. Jacob can see her expression perfectly, the horror and hurt. He can see the tears, even if he doesn’t understand them.

And then he sees the fire blooming up behind her, and he sees the half second of shock, of pain, of betrayal. Then the flames engulf her, and Jacob turns away. He feels oddly unsettled as he hurries away, and he's not sure if the screams he can hear echoing down the street behind him are actually hers, or just a cruel trick of his imagination. He hears his name, agonized and pleading, and then words fade into pure pain. But it's too late. The sound of it is already burned into Jacob's mind, along with Evie's expression as she looked at him.

Every time he blinks, he sees that flash of betrayal cross her face again. It shouldn't matter. What has Jacob ever done to make Evie think she can trust him? Why had she expected better from him? _It shouldn't matter._

He's never actually _seen_ someone burned alive before. Not right in front of him. He's never heard someone screaming his name while they died. Jacob has killed people before, and he's set plenty of fires. But he's never done both at once before.

"Jacob, Jacob!"

He half turns as Jack dashes up to him, beaming fit to burst. "Jack," Jacob says. His voice sounds flat in his own ears.

"I did good, didn't I Jacob?" Jack only has half an eyebrow left, but otherwise seems unharmed. "Did you see that fire, Jacob? I mean, did you _see_ it?"

"I saw it," Jacob says. He hesitates, then asks, "Did you hear her scream?"

"Nope," Jack says. "Hey, are those the papers you went in to get?"

Jacob pulls the papers out of his pocket and looks at them. "Yea." That’s something to take strength from, at least. Roth will be pleased to have his papers back so quickly. He'll forgive Jacob his original failure, things can go back to normal again.

Jacob closes his eyes, trying not to think of Evie, and imagines Roth's arms around him. Holding him, stroking his hair. Everything's going to be fine.

A fire engine screams past them, back toward the shop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...don't hate me?


	4. Chapter 4

(Six Years Ago)

-/-

It's raining outside, absolutely pouring really, and the three people waiting inside the police station for processing are drenched. The officer standing behind his desk and mumbling grumpily at his paperwork is just as wet, and splattered with mud on top of it.

The oldest of the three detainees is instantly recognizable. Jay has grown out of his awkward teenage years, into a young but handsome man, but his face itself has not changed much. The girl next to him is likewise easy to identify. Teenaged Evie Frye, even looking miserable and damp as she does now, still has a lot in common with the little girl she had once been. The one with the unshakeable belief in happy endings.

She keeps looking at the other boy in the room. He looks roughly the same age as she is, but his dress and his attitude could not be more different. He's wearing a shirt that's too small, a jacket that's too large, and jeans with more holes than fabric. His feet are bare. The boy is sitting slumped back in his chair, so low it almost looks like he's trying to go completely horizontal. His face is dirty, and his forehead sports so many pimples he could trace constellations on them. When he tilts his head, his long, shaggy hair swings down in front of his face to hide him.

At a casual glance he looks like this is something he does all the time, like he doesn't even care that he's been arrested and handcuffed to a chair (Evie and Jay are not restrained). But his bare feet curl nervously against the cold tile of the floor, tensing more and more the longer he has to wait there in silence.

Finally, the officer looks up at the three of them and sighs. "Jay," he says. "You might as well come through."

Jay stands, not looking at the officer, and says something. Nobody, and this most likely includes Jay himself, hears what that something is, because the long haired boy next to Evie jerks suddenly to attention. "Hey!" he protests. "I was here first, how long are you going to make me sit around and wait?"

Nobody answers him, and when the officer has taken Jay into a back room the boy slinks down in his chair again. His nerves show more obviously now, in the way he mutters to himself, the way his fingers twitch and won't stay still, the way he jumps a little at every noise.

Eventually, he glances sideways at Evie, who is staring at him. She has been, ever since Jay left. When he'd been with her, she'd seemed uncomfortable but composed. Now she is clearly nervous.

"What are you looking at?" he mutters.

"Are you…" she hesitates, then shrugs. "You look like the kind of person that's been in here before."

He shrugs, a quick, sharp gesture. "Yea, sure," he says. "All the time. No big deal."

Evie hesitates again, then says, "Really?"

He looks away, and for just a second manages to go still. "No," he says. "Never been arrested before."

Weirdly, this seems to make Evie relax a little. "Me neither," she says.

"Really?" the boy says. He rolls his eyes. "Never would have guessed. What are you even _doing_ here?"

Evie opens her mouth, but maybe the expression on the boy's face makes her think better of actually explaining. He doesn't look like he wants an explanation as much as he wants a reason to be angry. "Breaking and entering," she says. "I needed to see some adoption records."

The boy snorts. "Sounds like a stupid thing to get arrested over."

"We've done it before," Evie says, a shade defensively. "I'm—looking for someone. We started close to home, and since we haven't had any luck, we thought… well, London's big. They'll have more records than anyone else."

"Are you stupid or something?" the boy says. "Bigger just means it's easier to catch you. _And,"_ he gestures around them at their damp surroundings. "We're sitting in a police station, why did you just confess to _extra_ crimes that you haven't even been accused of?"

"I…"

The boy sighs, almost sympathetically. "Never mind," he says. "You look like you have money. You'll be out of here soon enough. Even though stealing adoption papers is a _stupid_ thing to be arrested for."

"Yea?" she says. "And what were _you_ arrested for?"

His hands are covered in spray paint. He sort of sits on them so she won't see, which is an impressive task considering his wrists are cuffed to each other and to his chair. "Nothing."

"Vandalism?" Evie guesses, a smile twitching around her mouth. "Graffiti?"

"Okay, yea," he admits. "But I was challenging the _establishment_ , okay? Serious stuff."

"Yea?"

"Yea." He glances sideways at her, and she's still looking at him, still smiling just a bit. Something silent passes between the two of them, and he smiles suddenly too. "Dicks," he admits. "All over the front of the station."

Evie laughs aloud, an unexpectedly bright note in the dingy room. Her neighbor smiles, apparently pleased with the attention. "I saw them when I come in," Evie says.

"Hard to miss, right?"

She laughs again—they laugh together. "Right," Evie says. "And I'm sure that's not at all a stupid reason to be arrested, is it?" She looks away and shakes her head, no longer laughing but still grinning. "And the front of the station? I wonder how they ever caught you."

"No idea," the boy says. "I'm much smarter than them, I swear."

"Clearly."

The gentle banter continues, a slow, steady release of pressure, until the officer comes back out with Jay. Neither of them is smiling, and the two teens go somber again at once.

"Hey," the boy calls. "Hey, I'm next this time, right?"

The officer looks like he wants nothing at all to do with the boy, but sighs and nods. "Right, Church," he says as he comes over to uncuff him. "You're next."

"It's _Jacob_ ," the teen insists, and then he and the officer are gone, vanished into a back room.

Evie turns back to Jay, who looks numb, as pale as a ghost and blank as a plain sheet of paper. "Jay?" she says cautiously. "Are you alright? What did Freddie say?"

He doesn't answer for a long moment. Then he heaves a sigh so long and miserable that it seems to make his whole body deflate. "Well," he says. "It could have been worse."

"What happened?"

He doesn't answer immediately, and when he does he says, "The important thing here is that you're still a minor," he says. "You'll probably get off with a warning, maybe a slap on the wrist. Freddie has assured me that the record will be sealed and it won't have any effect on your future. Although he did also say he's not looking forward to calling your dad and telling him where you are."

"It won't have any effect on me," Evie repeats, ignoring this last part. "Because I'm a minor."

Well, and because he's pulling some strings for you," Jay adds.

"But _mostly_ because I'm a minor."

"Yes."

After a brief moment of silence, she says, "You're not."

"No," Jay agrees, not quite looking at her.

"So what's going to happen to _you_?" Evie asks.

"Like I said," Jay says. "It… could have been worse. I know Freddie is on our side, I know he feels like the police failed you and your brother. That's probably why he's being so helpful in the first place."

Evie nods like she knows this already.

"The thing is… we got caught trying to steal adoption records," Jay says. "That's a child related offense, which… well, it doesn't exactly make me a pedophile or anything, but it's the kind of thing that sticks with you. Freddie suggested he might be able to misplace the paperwork, but… I wouldn't be able to be me anymore."

"What does _that_ mean?" Evie demands. "Jay!"

"I change my name," Jay says. "The charge sticks to Jayadeep Mir, and the new me walks away without a mark on my record."

"But you'll have to change everything then," Evie says. "If you don't want your new name connected to your old one, you'll have to quit your job, probably drop out of school—"

"I know," Jay says. "But what else can I do? It's better than walking around with this tied to me for the rest of my life." He sighs and leans back, rubbing at his face. "Can't wait to hear what my dad has to say about this," he adds, voice flat. Then—"We'll have to keep Freddie out of it from now on. I don't want to even think about how far he's stretching his neck out for us here. We can't ask him to do anything like this again."

"I can't ask _either_ of you to do anything like this again," Evie says. "I—Jay, I'm so sorry. This is my fault."

He glances over at her, and a spot of softness creeps across his face. "Don't be silly," he says. "We both know you're going to find your brother eventually. No matter what it takes or how much it costs you. But it will never cost you my friendship, Evie. I'll be here every time you need me."

She looks down at her knees, and seems to be trying not to cry. For a while, they both sit in silence. Then Jay says—

"Henry."

"What?"

"I've always liked the name Henry. What do you think?"

She's silent for several more seconds, then nods. "Henry Green," she suggests.

"I like it." Jay—or Henry, or whoever he is—reaches over and takes her hand. He squeezes it a little, and she squeezes back, and neither of them looks at the other.

And so it is that Jayadeep Mir passes away, and Henry Green is born.

-/-

(Present Day)

-/-

The papers Jacob had gone through so much to retrieve from Evie lie forgotten on Roth's desk, scattered along the surface like so much meaningless scrap paper. One sheet has drifted to the floor, where it becomes an impromptu bed for Roth's cat. The animal lounges atop it like a queen on her throne, casting disapproving looks at the bed where Jacob and Roth are tangled together, moaning and sweating, caught up in the ecstasy of the moment and barely sparing a thought for anything else.

Jacob has always detested that cat. It always seems weirdly interested in him when he takes off his pants, the pervert. On any other day, he would have asked Roth to remove the cat from the room, but right now he doesn't care. Doesn't care about that damn cat, doesn't care about the incessantly cawing crow ( _KAAW, KAAW, KAAW,_ over and over and over) in a cage over the window—a new and noisy addition to the room. The only thing he wants in the world right now is _Roth_. It doesn't even feel like a want anymore, it feels like a need. Jacob needs Roth, he needs the reality of Roth around him and in him, to rub out the memories of Evie that won't leave.

Every breath he takes is tainted by the smell of smoke—more than likely, some of Jacob's nose hairs had singed from the heat. He'd done it before, when he was younger and still learning to set fires properly. Probably Jack had screwed something up.

But it's hard to think like that when every breath makes him think of charred, burning skin, when he can still feel the heat of the fire against his skin, when Evie's face is tattooed against the inside of his eyelids, when her last scream echoes unendingly in his ears—

"Roth," Jacob moans. " _Roth_ —"

He isn't ready to let go when Roth finishes and rolls away. That's not unusual, of course, Jacob is never ready to let go. But for once his feelings have nothing to do with sex and everything to do with the need to be held by someone that cares.

Jacob doesn't say anything, though. When Roth gets out of bed and starts gathering up the scattered papers Jacob had retrieved, shooing away the cat and pulling the pages together into a loose stack. The cat shakes itself off, clearly offended at being displaced, and jumps up on the bed. It stares at Jacob's balls with a disturbing amount of interest until Jacob gets uncomfortable and pulls the blankets up over his hips.

The cat climbs onto his stomach and curls up to sleep.

"I don't like this," Roth says. He has his business face on, and he's frowning down at the papers as he comes back to sit down on the bed. Jacob tries to shift closer to him, but the cat tenses up and Jacob swears he can feel claws digging into him, just a _tiny_ bit north of somewhere truly uncomfortable. Probably better to stay still for now, if he doesn't want this fucking cat to make a eunuch out of him.

"What don't you like?" Jacob asks instead. He takes a breath, catching just a hint of Roth's scent through the choking smell of fire trapped in his nose. It's not enough, Jacob is starting to think that nothing will _ever_ be enough to wipe Evie's death out of his mind. And it shouldn't matter _, it shouldn't matter_. Who is she to him, why does he care?

Because she'd burned in front of him. Because she'd died in so much pain. Maybe because she'd been trying to tell him something, and whatever it was that had been so important to her had died with her, unspoken.

Roth reaches down with one hand and pets Jacob's hair. It's a familiar gesture, a comforting one, and even now it relaxes Jacob. Just a little. "This list," Roth says. "The one Frye took."

"I got it back," Jacob says, just a hint of whining reproach creeping into his voice. He'd gone through a lot to get those papers, and it had taken more from him than he'd expected. Is it still not enough?

"You did well," Roth assures him. His fingers pet and pet, soothing and repetitive, fingers running along the space along the back of Jacob's ear they both know he particularly likes. "But there's always the chance that Frye could have made copies and passed them on before she died."

"She told me she didn't," Jacob says.

"And you believed her?" Roth chuckles. "Jacob, darling, you have a great many admirable qualities—but you can be rather a moron sometimes."

Jacob would have argued if anyone else had said this to him. But something about Roth makes all his pride shrivel up and go quiet, like his own opinion of himself is something so laughably unimportant it's not even worth mentioning. Today, like every other day, Jacob stays quiet.

"Most of this will be useless without other documents," Roth says. "And I've secured all those since yesterday. But _this_ —" he passes a paper down to Jacob, who tries to twist into a position where he can read it without pulling away from Roth's hand or aggravating the cat. "This is a weak spot."

Jacob recognizes two of the names on the sheet of paper he's holding. Jack. Clara. He's pretty sure the other two names are those of the other foster kids they're living with. There's a lot of information here besides the names. Ages, addresses, exactly what they do for Roth. Jacob even sees a note about Clara's nut allergy.

"What's the matter with it?" Jacob asks, trying to pass the paper back. Roth doesn't take it.

"You don't see the problem?" Roth asks. "You don't think it would be bad if she sent this onto the police? If they start sending men in uniform to talk to the kids on this list? Some of them are eight, ten years old. Some are even _younger,_ darling. A kid like that doesn't know how to keep their mouth shut, and even if they try they'll give me away in other ways. They don't know how to lie."

"Well what do you want me to do about it?" Jacob asks, because it's becoming increasingly obvious that this is all leading up to Roth telling Jacob to do _something._ "Maybe she _did_ lie, maybe she made a million copies, maybe she emailed the names to everyone in London. How would I track that?"

"Oh no," Roth says. "That would be impossible, I know that. I want you to take the kids out of the equation."

Jacob closes his eyes.

He sees Evie's face again in his mind's eye, terrified. But this time he sees Jack too, bouncing along the sidewalk, looking up at Jacob with that desperate need for approval. "You want me to kill them," Jacob says. He looks at the list again. Four names. Jack, Clara, and two others he doesn't know.

"I know you can do it," Roth says, which isn't the problem at all. "You've killed for me before."

Grown men and women, Jacob argues in his head. Adults that understand. Not kids. They're practically babies. "I can't," Jacob says, his voice cracking. "Please, Roth. Please don't ask me to do that."

Roth pulls back, standing and looking down at Jacob. When both of them stand side by side, Roth has four inches over Jacob. Here, now, with Roth standing and Jacob flat on his back with _that goddamned cat asleep on his balls_ , the difference between them is monumental, insurmountable. Jacob feels like a child himself, stupid and small and utterly without power. It's a trick Roth has used before—minus the cat, because the cat does whatever the fuck it wants—to great effect. Jacob will do anything, _anything_ , to get back in Roth's good graces, to rub out the difference between them, to bring Roth close to him again.

Except...

Today is the day Jacob discovers that's not quite true. Turns out, Jacob realizes with a dull flare of surprise, he actually won't do anything. He's pretty sure he can't kill these kids, not even to redeem himself in Roth's eyes. Jacob looks up at Roth, miserable, and maybe Roth sees the certainty in Jacob's eyes. He snorts derisively, a noise that makes Jacob's stomach curls up, makes him wither in shame. This is it. This is the point where Roth realizes Jacob has never been worthy of him.

"Look," Roth says, and Jacob follows Roth with his eyes as the other man crosses the room to the bird cage. The cat perks her head up as well as the bird starts to caw in alarm. "Do you know what kind of bird this is?"

"A crow," Jacob says. He has no idea where this conversation is going.

"A rook," Roth says. "But close enough. They're incredibly intelligent birds. They reason, they can even craft simple tools to get to food. I rather liked this one."

"I do," Roth assures him. "But my cat likes it rather more. She's been watching this little rook since the day I brought him home. And one of these days, when she's good and ready, she will pounce. And this bird's death will not be quick." In one smooth motion, Roth twists his finger's around the crow's neck, and yanks.

It dies mid-caw, going limp all at once. Jacob stares at it. For a moment there is silence, and then Roth throws the rook carelessly toward the cat, which digs its paws into Jacob's stomach as it jumps off after the bird.

"Why did you do that?" Jacob asks, when his voice comes back.

Roth looks up from where the cat is batting at the rook's corpse. "To prove a point, darling!" he says, and his voice comes alive, full and bright. This, here, is the passion that had made Jacob fall in love with Roth in the first place. It seems dark suddenly, tainted by the pointless death of the bird (a death whose point Jacob is still struggling to understand), by what he has told Jacob to do, by the fact that _Evie had been right._

He takes everything they have, she'd told Jacob. He uses them, and then he destroys them. Jacob hadn't believed her, because… maybe just because he hadn't wanted to. These kids are in the same place Jacob had been at their age. Orphans, foundlings, the ones nobody wants. And Roth is—he's just like everyone else, stepping on them, _destroying_ them to get what he wants. He would have done the same to Jacob, wouldn't he? If they'd met when Jacob was younger.

Something seems to slip sideways. The whole universe tilts, and Jacob is left off balance and afraid.

Because if Evie is _right_ and Roth is _wrong_ then Jacob is—

Jacob is what?

Jacob is sitting naked in the bed of the man he loves more than anyone else in the world, wondering if that man might actually be a monster.

"I could have let the cat kill the bird," Roth says. "Cats play with their food, of course. We don't know how long it would have taken for her to tire of her game and finally put the poor thing out of its misery. What I did was a kindness. The bird had to die. The only question was whether it would be quick and painless, or drawn out and cruel."

"I don't… understand," Jacob says.

Roth looks down at the cat and the bird, a smile curving its way across his face. "It was just a baby, you know," he says. And _then_ Jacob gets it.

"So—so if the bird is these kids you want me to take care of," he says. "You're telling me that I can kill them now, and make it quick and painless—"

Roth looks at him and nods. "Or I can kill them later," he says. "And it will hurt."

"You don't have to kill them," Jacob says. "No one does! They're _innocents_."

"They're a danger to me," Roth says. "They would betray me to the police, whether they wanted to or not. They are a threat, and so I will remove said threat. That's merely the nature of the world, Jacob. The strong survive. The weak do not."

He steps over the cat to return to Jacob, and when he leans down for a kiss, Jacob's mouth slides open out of sheer instinct. His mind is racing, and he doesn't know what to believe anymore. It's too much all at once. Evie, the fire, the children, the bird—he doesn't know how to deal with all this, he needs to get away and… and think.

But Roth is kissing him, and Jacob is kissing him back because that has always made things better before.

"You will do it," Roth whispers. His mouth is so close to Jacob's ear that Jacob can feel the little puff of Roth's breath on his skin when he talks. "Won't you?"

"Yes," Jacob says. Because it's Roth, and... and he has to say yes to Roth. But there's a little voice in the back of his head, soft now but already growing stronger, and that voice is saying _**no**_ **.** It sounds surprisingly like Evie's.

"There's a good boy," Roth says, and Jacob turns away. Shame and guilt and fear, feelings he'd thought he'd left behind for good when he met Roth, swirl around inside him. Jacob's a mess, and he isn't sure if he could kill anyone now if he wanted to.

But when he dresses, he tucks his knife away in its sheath again, and tries not to imagine how large it is compared to Jack and Clara. How easily it could cut them to pieces. Then he leaves without saying goodbye, the list of children (victims) clutched in one fist, and goes to find them. Not that it's hard. He knows where they live, after all. Where they sleep, where they go to school. He knows the park where Clara goes to read when she can't stand to go home, knows the exact tree she'll climb to stay out of sight and out of the way. He knows the closed-down restaurant Jack's parents had owned before they died, knows which table he likes to hide under and cry, holding his stuffed cow and hugging it like it will come to life and hug him back if he just wishes hard enough.

Jacob has worked with Clara many times. She's clever and quick, and although she refuses point blank to get involved in any of the illegal things Roth asks, she picks up information and passes it along. Jacob is unobservant and rash, and the things she notices are often helpful. Now he's on his way to kill her. Jack isn't quite so useful. He stumbles and falls, and life kicks him over and over again. Jack kicks back in the only way he knows how, with violence against mice and birds and anything else small enough to become his victim. But it's not like Roth killing that rook. Roth had been... showing off. Proving something to Jacob. Jack has never known anything else. Jacob is supposed to kill her too, he's supposed to prove to Jack once and for all that violence is all the world is.

Evie's voice is still in his head, still whispering _**no, no, no**_ , and Jacob almost laughs because _damn_ , what a time to grow a conscience. He doesn't have time for this, he doesn't want this…

The four children live in a small building with an indifferent set of foster parents. Jacob knows there are more kids working for Roth, all over the city, but lucky for him and for them, these are the only ones listed on the papers Evie had stolen. The others are safe, at least from Jacob. At least... for now. Until Roth decides to get rid of them, too. He climbs through Clara's window and tries to remember to breathe.

For a long, long moment, Jacob stands frozen next to the window. He doesn't draw his knife but he _imagines_ it. He thinks about the weight of the knife in his hand, thinks about holding it against Clara's neck. Jacob knows exactly how much pressure it will take to cut through skin and muscle, he knows where to cut to make it quick and painless.

"Clara," Jacob calls. She's on her bed, headphones plugged into her phone, nodding her head along to whatever she's listening to.

When she looks over and sees Jacob, she jumps, and yanks her headphones out. "What are you doing here?" she demands.

"Roth sent me here to kill you and the others," Jacob says. In retrospect, it's probably not the best way to start. "But—no, no, no—" she's opening her mouth to scream. "Clara, I won't do it, okay? I can't kill any of you."

She snorts. "You'd snap your own neck if Roth told you to."

Well, maybe he would. But he's got blood on his hands. These kids don't deserve it. Not even Jack. God knows what he'll grow into, but… he's six. Jacob doesn't really believe he knows what he's doing. Maybe he'll grow up to be perfectly normal. It's more _likely_ he'll keep cutting up dead animals and setting things on fire, but maybe he'll get his shit together someday. "I'm trying to help you here," he tells Clara. "If you want to live, run. Take Jack and the others, and get as far away as you can."

"A bunch of runaway kids?" Clara says. "Where are we going to go?"

"Better runaways than Roth's victims," Jacob tells her. "Go on. Get the others up here."

She hesitates, but in the end she does as she's told. When she's gone to find the younger children, Jacob's legs give out and he sags sideways onto Clara's bed. Twenty four hours ago… fuck that, _two_ hours ago, Roth's opinion had been the only thing that mattered in the world to him. And now here he is, intentionally going behind Roth's back to save these kids. What is he doing? _Why?_

"Jacob!"

Jack doesn't quite shout, but he's not as quiet as he should be. Jacob looks up in time to see the boy come running toward him, beaming. The little stuffed cow he won't sleep without is clutched tight against his chest. Jack hugs Jacob tight and bounces a little. "Did you come to play with me?"

"No."

Jacob doesn't mean to sound cold, but he has so many other things on his mind that there is no room at all left over to worry about Jack's feelings. The boy's face falls, and he clutches his cow tighter. "But we had fun with the fire, didn't we Jacob? _Didn't_ we? I helped you!"

Jacob looks at Jack, and he knows the boy isn't going anywhere as long as he's still looking at Jacob like _this_. Like Jacob is his friend and his hero. No. Jacob has to make himself the villain in Jack's eyes if he wants the boy to go away and be safe. He has to do to Jack what Roth had done for him, turn his whole world upside down and inside out and leave him to figure out a way to stand up again on his own. "That was _fun_ for you?" Jacob asks, and he hates the way his voice sounds. Cold and hard and cruel. These are words that are meant to hurt, to drive Jack away. But they're hurting Jacob, too. And he doesn't even _like_ the kid that much.

"Yea," Jack says, but he sounds uncertain. "Wasn't it… didn't I do good?"

"No," Jacob says. Jack flinches. "You messed it up completely, kid."

"But… but what did I do wrong?" Jack is crying now, tears streaming down his grubby face. Jacob doesn't even like the kid, but this is so, so hard. Still better than killing him or letting him be killed, though.

"You don't even?" Jacob asks. He laughs at Jack, and Jack flinches again, hunching up and hiding his face in his cow. "Idiot."

"Why are you being mean?" Jack asks. His voice is muffled. "Please, Jacob. Pl-please? We're friends, aren't we? _Please_ say we're friends."

"We were never friends," Jacob says, and wonders if maybe this is just another way of killing Jack, slower and more painful even than what Roth has in mind. The boy is crying and shaking like Jacob has just torn his heart out of his chest.

"I'm _sorry_ ," Jack sobs. "I'm sorry, Jacob, I'll do better next time! Promise, promise!"

"Yea, right," Jacob says. "You're just a stupid baby."

"I'm not st—stupid! I'm not a _baby!"_ He looks up at Jacob, eyes shining with tears that still won't stop. "I _hate_ you, Jacob, I _hate_ you!"

He goes running out of the room, still crying, and Clara looks helplessly at Jacob. "Thanks for that," she says, sarcasm layered thickly over her words. "Dealing with him is going to be fun."

"At least he's willing to leave now," Jacob says.

Clara hesitates. "Roth," she says. "It's really that bad? Does he really want us dead?"

Jacob nods.

"But… why?" Clara asks, and for a second she looks so young and lost that Jacob wonders if he's sending her to her death anyway. No. No, he can't let himself believe that. She's smart, and the other kids trust her. If anyone can get them safely away from Roth, it'll be Clara.

Jacob shrugs miserably, and Clara looks away. "I always knew he was dangerous," she says. "But..." She heaves a sigh, already moving past this. She's older than Jack. She's seen more of the world, been betrayed and hurt more than he has. She can shut herself away from the pain in a way that Jacob knows well, but Jack hasn't yet learned. She doesn't look at him. "Thanks for… you know."

"Not killing you all?"

Clara shivers. "Yea," she says. "Thanks for that."

"You're welcome," Jacob says. "I guess."

And with this less than eloquent goodbye, they go their separate ways. Jacob watches the four children as they climb out the window, avoid their foster parents, and disappear down the street. Clara is in the lead, followed by the two kids Jacob doesn't know as well. Jack brings up the rear, and Jacob can tell he's still crying. Then they're gone.

Jacob has no plans after that. Nowhere to go. Home—Roth's place—is suddenly out of the question. He hates his apartment. So he wanders the streets, and tries to think of somewhere safe. But he can't remember ever feeling safe without Roth around.

His feet—traitorous bastards—take him back to the shop where he and Jack had burned Evie alive. He's not the only one there. Whatever Jacob had told Jack to scare him off, the truth is that it had been an impressive fire. The kid had done well, and when Jacob reaches the shop he sees people gathered around to gawk at the ruin. Jacob stops too, and looks.

"Horrible, isn't it?" someone asks, and Jacob turns around to see an older man standing there. He doesn't look like the other people gathered around, crowing over the wrecked shop like it's a tourist attraction, taking pictures and selfies. This man is pale and scared. His eyes are wet.

"Yea," Jacob mutters. "Horrible."

The man is still looking at the shop, not at Jacob. "My daughter was in there when it caught fire," he says.

"Oh," Jacob says. He doesn't want to be standing here, talking to the father of the woman he's killed. Not when he still can't forget her screaming. "I'm sorry." He tries to make it sound like a generic _I'm sorry for your loss_ instead of the truer _I'm sorry I killed her_.

"Did you know her?" Evie's father asks. "I… we fought, a few years ago, and we haven't spoken much since." His shoulders hunch, bowed down by grief and regret and other feelings Jacob can't read. "I don't know many of her friends anymore. Sometimes I think I don't even know _her_ anymore."

"I didn't know her well," Jacob says. "We talked a couple times. She tried to help me figure some stuff out, and I… didn't want to hear it until it was too late. I've already messed everything up."

"Never too late," Evie's father says. "Maybe you can still fix whatever mistake you made."

"Doubt it," Jacob mutters, around the lump forming in his throat. He can't bring Evie back from the dead. He can't make Roth turn back into the man Jacob thought he was yesterday.

Evie's father turns to look at him, and there is a sudden fire in his eyes that Jacob does not expect. "I know you said you didn't know my daughter well," he says. "But if she was your friend at all, I know she would have wanted you to try fixing things anyway. I said that she and I fought—the truth is that I made a mistake many years ago, when Evie was born. I spent a long time denying that I had done anything at all, and then years after that insisting I'd done the right thing."

He looks away from Jacob. "But Evie always wanted me to try and make up for my mistake. She said—it was too late to change what I had done, but never too late to fix things. I'm sure she would say the same to you, if she was here now."

"Don't think there's much point," Jacob says. "It's not the kind of mistake you can fix."

"I used to say the same thing," Evie's father says. "I abandoned her twin brother when the two of them were infants." Jacob stiffens with anger, sharp and instinctive. He's never met Evie's brother, but he's been there. He gets it, he knows how much it hurts to be abandoned. "I spent a lot of time pretending I'd done nothing wrong, and then I lost Evie over it. She kept telling me I could do something to get him back. She was looking for him, and I could look too. I didn't listen, so she left." He takes a deep breath. "But when Evie wakes up, I want to be able to tell her I'm trying. I want to stop fighting, and be a family again. The two of us. Maybe even… if we can find m—my son, maybe even the three of us." He gives Jacob a look of such guilt and regret and pain that Jacob's anger fades. He has never before felt sympathy for the kind of people that abandon their children, but this man is sad and lost and it is impossible not to pity him.

And then it hits him, and Jacob physically jerks back a step. "When she wakes up?" he repeats. "She's _alive_?"

"You didn't know?"

"I thought—I mean, you said she was in there!" Jacob gestures to the shop, and the image of Evie's face as she caught fire flashes across his mind's eye. "How could she be alive?"

"The fire was more showy than it was dangerous," Evie's father says. "It looked worse than it really was." Jacob almost laughs aloud because apparently Jack _had_ messed it up after all. Jacob wants to hug the kid. "And Evie was in the door when things caught fire. It blasted her out, onto the street and away from the fire."

"She's alive," Jacob says.

"Unconscious and in a lot of pain," Evie's father says. "And… and the doctors say she might _not_ be alive this time tomorrow, but for now… yes. She's alive."

"She's—" oh, this is a bad idea. "Can I see her?" He doesn't even know why he's asking, except that Roth has shattered his whole world today. Evie had been an enemy when Roth was good, but Roth… isn't… _good_ anymore. Jacob is still trying to figure things out, but maybe Roth being bad means Evie is actually good.

He just wants to see her again.

Evie's father nods, and sort of gestures at Jacob to follow him. They get a cab, and they sit side by side in the back seat, lost in their own private thoughts. It seems to take forever to get to the hospital, and then Evie's father takes Jacob all the way to Evie's room.

"I'll just…" he doesn't seem to want to look at Evie. "I'll leave you here for a minute," he says. "I need something to eat."

Jacob nods, and when he and Evie are alone he sits down at her side. She looks… She…

Jacob has destroyed her.

Evie's skin is a patchwork of burns in different colors, every color from a pale pink to an unnatural white. There are more unburned sections than Jacob expects, but that only adds to the overall appearance of having been stitched together from the parts of many different people. Her hair is gone, burned or cut away by doctors, and even her scalp is badly burned. She's not wearing much, mostly bandages with a loose hospital robe over it. There's a mask strapped to her mouth to help her breathe, and an IV in her arm.

"You were right," Jacob tells her. "Roth is… he—" Jacob rubs at his face and sighs. "He never cared about the kids. He's just using them, just like you said. He told me to do something I can't do. He's not the man I thought he was, he's the man _you_ thought he was. So I don't know what to do now. Roth's been everything in my life since I turned eighteen, and I don't know what to do anymore…"

Evie doesn't wake. Jacob doesn't know if he'd been hoping she would or not, but either way she sleeps on.

"What are _you_ doing here?"

The voice at the doorway—horrified, terrified, shocked—makes Jacob jump to his feet and turn around. It's Henry, staring at him with a look that can best be described as revulsion. "I came to see Evie," Jacob says, jerking her head toward Evie's bed.

"Came to finish the job?" Henry asks, too loud. "Try and kill her again?"

"I didn't do it," Jacob says, a knee jerk reaction that Henry clearly doesn't believe. He steps closer to Jacob.

"I know it was you," he says. "I know you tried to burn her alive."

"Henry—"

"Get out of here!"

"Henry!"

" _Leave!"_

He glares at Jacob for a moment, and then his face crumples and he drops into the chair Jacob has just jumped out of. "Don't hurt her," he says, and he sounds like he's begging. "You've hurt her so many times already, you've caused her nothing but pain her whole life."

"I only met her last night," Jacob protests, and almost laughs at the insanity of it all. How can his life have changed so much in one day?

Henry ignores this. For a long time, for what feels like days but is probably just hours, Henry sits and looks at Evie with an expression so full of love and pain and loss that it almost takes Jacob's breath away. No one has ever looked at him like that. Not even Roth. Maybe no one ever will. Jacob sits in the room's only other chair, a little way apart from Evie and Henry. He waits, still and quiet, as the room starts to darken around them.

"Why didn't you call the police as soon as I walked in here?" Jacob asks at last.

"I could have," Henry says. "I _should_ have. I have proof. There was a camera at the shop, filming the door. It caught you coming in right before the fire started, and the footage survived. But... Evie wouldn't want you arrested. She would have told me to protect you at all costs, so I will."

It throws Jacob. He feels like the world has been slowly tilting sideways since Roth told him to go kill a handful of orphans just like him. Now Evie Frye cares about him. " _Why_?"

Henry looks sideways at him, and shakes his head. "She's given up her whole life, looking for you," he says. "Every choice she ever made was to find _you_. This morning she called me, said she'd finally figured it out, who you were. She was crying. I've _never_ heard her so broken, but all this time looking for you, and you turn out to be—" Henry gestures to Jacob. Jacob is suddenly very aware that he still smells of the fire that had almost killed Evie, that he's carrying a knife he was supposed to use to kill four children, that whatever Evie expected him to be (and what _had_ she expected him to be? _Why_ had she looked so long and so hard for Jacob, of all people?) Jacob knows he must have fallen short of her expectations. Far, far short.

"She used to have goals," Henry says. "A _plan_ for her life. But the more she looked for you, the farther she fell. She had a full ride scholarship. Turned it down to look for you. She's always been a good fighter. Took martial arts and things since she was old enough to walk--she used to tell me it helped her feel better. But now she goes to fight clubs, she hurts people and they hurt her, because she thinks she might hear something about you. She breaks into buildings to steal things that might lead back to you, she jumps out of buildings and climbs down walls—all for you."

"I didn't ask her to do any of that," Jacob protests. "I don't even _know_ her!"

"She's better off without you," Henry says.

And because Jacob can't argue with that, because Evie is dying, because Jacob doesn't even understand what they're talking about, he leaves.

Hours must have passed while he sat silently in the hospital with Henry. It had been morning when he met Evie's father, and it's after sunset now. Something about it makes Jacob uneasy, and a sense of dark foreboding creeps over him.

There's a new text waiting on his phone, and it's from Roth. His stomach flips, but it's nothing to do with his usual expectation. It's _fear_. Because… he doesn't know Roth anymore. Jacob feels like scales are falling from his eyes, like he's seeing the world and Roth clearly for the first time.

He opens the message, and there is a picture of two dead bodies there. Children. Covered in cuts, all over their bodies. Jacob can tell at a glance that they had not died quickly. They are so injured that it takes him several seconds longer to recognize the two children that had been on the list with Clara and Jack, the ones Jacob had tried to save…

A new message pops up under the picture.

**You could have made things so much BETTER for them, so much EASIER**

Jacob shakes.

**We could have been GREAT** _**,** _ **we could have gone down in history**

He shakes, he _cries_ , but he does not move. The world is crumbling, his mind is crumbling, and _Roth is a monster_. Maybe he had always been a monster, but it is only now that Jacob can really see him for what he is.

**It's not too late, Jacob. Come back to me. I love you**

And then he stops shaking and starts running because yes, actually, he does know where Roth is. He'll be at the Alhambra. On the stage, most likely, and Jacob can picture _exactly_ the expression on Roth's face. Beaming, excited, ready for a real show with himself as the star.

But Jacob had almost burned a woman alive because of Roth. He had almost killed four children. He had broken Jack's heart. And Roth had sent Jacob a picture of two dead children, which is absolutely the last straw. Those children have no one else in the world, those children are as helpless and alone as Jacob had been—as Jacob _still is_. And Clara and Jack are still out there somewhere, still in danger. At least they're still alive, they must have gotten away. Roth would have sent Jacob pictures of their bodies too, if he'd caught them.

What Jacob does next, he is going to do for the two dead kids. He's going to do it for Clara and Jack. He's going to do it for Evie and Henry. And he's going to do it for himself and for Roth, because Roth loves Jacob and Jacob loves Roth but Roth is a _monster_. He… he needs to die. For all he has done and all he would do if he lived. But Jacob needs to be there for Roth when he dies, needs to hold his hand and make sure the last thing Roth sees is someone that loves him.

Even if that someone is also his killer.

Jacob stops at the theatre's door. His mind can't stop racing, running over and over everything that has happened, like it's looking for some way out of this. Some loophole that will explain everything Roth has done, something that will turn him back into the man Jacob knows and loves.

Nothing comes to mind. The only thing Jacob can think of to do is to kill Roth, to do to him exactly what Roth had tried to get him to do to those kids in the first place. Funny. Ha. But this kill, unlike the ones Roth had urged Jacob toward, will fix things. It will take something bad out of the world.

Yes. He has to do this. For himself. For all the people Roth threatens. For Roth himself.

He starts to move and then he just _freezes_ as things finally connect up in his mind. It's such a stupid thing to realize just at this moment, but... Jacob's mouth works silently for a moment, running through this terrifying new realization step by step, totally unable to believe it's true.

Evie's father had told Jacob that he'd given Evie's brother away as a newborn. Jacob had been abandoned when he was a day old.

Henry told Jacob that Evie had been looking for _him,_ for _Jacob_ , for her entire life. Evie's father said that Evie was looking for her brother.

Jacob slips to the ground, giggling with the sheer, insane absurdity of it all. Evie Frye is his sister. _He has a family_. Or had a family. Then he'd set his sister on fire, and undoubtedly ruined everything because how could she ever want him now? He laughs until he cries, he cries until his whole body aches.

And then he stops crying, he stops laughing, and—numb and empty from the realization that he's ruined the one thing he's always wanted—goes to kill the man he loves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... I started writing this chapter at about 5:00 and it's 1:30 in the morning now and I honestly don't remember spending eight and a half hours on this? Hopefully it reads okay. Time to go to bed and probably sleep through my first class.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure if this is something that needs a warning, but this chapter has Roth sort of seducing Jacob (There's nothing explicit, because I'm terrible at that) just after his 18th birthday. So he's not... quite a minor, but there's still a pretty significant age difference. If that's something you'd rather not read, go ahead and skip the flashback. 

 

(Three Years Ago)

-/-

It is dark.

It is dark, but the shape of a man is still barely visible in the deep shadows of an alley. A man, or possibly a boy. His posture, hunched over and drooping, sprawled against the wall of a nearby building, makes him seem like a very old man indeed. He sags, legs spread out before him, head tilted back to lean on the walls like it's just too much effort to hold it up. But at the same time he is _small_ , so small that it is impossible to believe him anything but a child. Perhaps if he had been cleaner and better fed he would not have looked so young, but…

Well. To say he is badly in need of both food and a bath would be an understatement.

Laughter and conversation echoes down the alley from somewhere nearby—the building that forms the backbone of this alley is a theatre, and tonight's show has just finished. Theatre patrons spill out onto the streets, talking and laughing. Some head toward waiting cars, others look for public transportation. All are smiling, and the man in the shadows shrinks back against the wall of the alley. He wraps his arms around his chest, fingers squeezing his shoulders. It is not until the last of the voices fade that he relaxes a little.

Too soon. A door in the back of the theatre opens, light bursting through it and catching the man by surprise. For a moment he freezes in surprise, and in that moment a particularly observant watcher might recognize the man as Jacob. But he is such a mess, so dirty and withered and broken, that it would have to have been a very observant watcher indeed. The first moment of surprise passes, and Jacob half rises on legs that shake, stumbling backward away from the light.

There is a man standing in the door, but he is backlit, surrounded by light that streams out around him in an aura, rubbing out detail so that only his outline is visible. It is clear, from the look of gawping disbelief on Jacob's staring face, that all this is having a powerful effect on him. Perhaps it was meant to.

The man moves away from the doorway, away from the light and into the darkness. He crouches next to Jacob, ignoring the man's mumbling protests, and reaches forward to take gentle hold of his face. The man—now that he has stepped back from the light a bit—is visible as a rather ordinary man of maybe thirty years with graying hair and a bushy mustache. His clothes are of good quality without being showy, and his eyes are intense as he studies Jacob.

Jacob goes still and tense, eyes dropping to the ground. "I'll go," he says. "You don't have to call the police, or anything."

But the man shakes his head and stands, offering a hand to Jacob. "Don't be foolish, dear boy," he says. His voice is rich, full of emotion—he projects when he speaks, and compared to him Jacob seems to be whispering. "Come inside."

Jacob's eyes flick upward to look at him, then fall back to the ground almost at once. "Why?"

"You've practically moved into my alley," the man says. "It seems only neighborly to invite you in for a meal."

Most likely, it's the word _meal_ that gets Jacob standing. Certainly his expression seems less cautious after the promise of food. "You knew I was here?"

"You're hardly the first vagrant to make this ally your home," the man says. "And I doubt you'll be the last." He puts an arm around Jacob's shoulder and gently guides him toward the door. Jacob glances uncomfortably at the arm, but doesn't say anything in protest. Instead, he looks (up) at the man.

"You said this is your alley?" he asks. "Is that—so you own the theatre?"

"I do," the man says. "My name is Maxwell Roth."

Jacob flinches and tries to stop walking, but the gentle pressure of Roth's arm on his back keeps him moving inexorably forward. "Roth," he echoes. "People say you control half the gangs in London. You run guns and drugs and kill people that get in your way."

"You've heard of me," Roth says with such _obvious_ delight that it wrings a laugh out of Jacob. "And your name?"

"Jacob," Jacob says.

"Just Jacob?"

"…Church," Jacob says. "But—I like just Jacob."

"I think I like just Jacob too," Roth says, and Jacob flushes like he's not quite sure if he's been complimented. "So tell me. How did you come to be lying in the trash outside my theatre?"

Jacob shrugs. By now they have passed through the theatre's back halls to the stairs. "Usual story, I guess," he says.

"Tell it to me anyway."

"Grew up in the foster system," Jacob says. "Hated it. Left a couple months shy of my eighteenth birthday, before they could kick me out. Turns out I wasn't as ready to be on my own as I thought I was."

"You're not eighteen yet?" Roth asks, giving Jacob a critical look.

"I am today," Jacob says, and Roth squeezes his arm, grinning broadly.

"Happy birthday," he says, and Jacob flushes a deeper red. They reach the top floor and Roth takes Jacob into his own office, sits him down in a chair and starts pulling out food. Jacob stares at it for a second, then looks up at Roth—the expression on his tired face is truly pitiable. Desperate and pleading, and not _quite_ believing that such a stroke of luck has come this way.

"Well, eat," Roth says, smile growing wider. Jacob _falls_ on the food without waiting for any further encouragement. "I set it out for you, dear boy."

For a long while after that, the only sound in the room are the frankly unattractive noises of a starving man eating as much food as he possibly can. Roth busies himself about the room, tidying up mostly but always keeping one eye on Jacob. Every time he passes close to Jacob's chair he reaches out to touch—a brief brush of fingers through Jacob's hair, or along his upper arm. At first Jacob completely ignores these touches, too focused on the food in front of him to care what Roth is doing. But eventually his stomach begins to fill, and Jacob seems to become aware of Roth's hovering presence. For a minute or so he looks vaguely uncomfortable, but Roth's touch never goes far enough to be inappropriate, and before long Jacob's expression melts into something between embarrassed and pleased.

"I could do some work for you," Jacob says when he's eaten absolutely everything in front of him. He glances sideways at Roth, who smiles and sits in the chair next to Jacob's. He leans close to Jacob, and when he speaks it's in a quiet, almost conspiratorial voice.

"I would like that," he says. "I think there's quite a lot you could do for me."

"Oh? Did you—what do you have in mind?"

"Come home with me," Roth says. "I live just down the street."

"Why?" Jacob asks. "What do you want from me?"

Roth's expression is unreadable. "What's important," he says. "Is that I am offering you a bed for the night. A change of clothes, a shower. Food in the morning, and then work."

"But _why_?" Jacob insists. "There must be thousands of people like me in London, why do you want to help me?"

"I think I'll keep my reasons to myself for now," Roth says. "Will you come?"

For a moment, all the power in the conversation shifts from Roth to Jacob. Everything Roth has said and done until now has gradually taken Jacob deeper into the theatre, into Roth's domain, into Roth's power. But now Roth offers Jacob a choice, and he waits patiently as Jacob bites his lip and considers.

After a very long time, Jacob nods a fraction. Roth smiles broadly and reaches a hand up to squeeze Jacob's shoulder. "Wonderful, my dear boy," he says. "Wonderful! Follow me!"

And off he goes, darting out of the office and down the stairs with the speed and agility of a much younger man. Jacob follows. He moves slowly, almost uncertainly. But of his own free will, he follows.

Roth leads him home, shows him to the bathroom and brings a clean pair of clothes, then leaves him alone. Jacob shuts the bathroom door and leans back against it, clothes clutched to his chest. For a while he does nothing, doesn't even move, just stares at the opposite wall. After a while he looks down at the clothes, fingers playing absentmindedly with the tags that are still attached. He smiles, a genuine smile. From the state of his own clothes—dirty, full of holes, and ill fitting—it has clearly been a while since he wore anything new.

Jacob puts the clothes down next to the sink, and turns his attention to the shower.

He strips and turns on the water, and then proceeds to scrub every inch of himself until the dark tint of dirt has faded from his skin, replaced by a raw pinkness. He washes his hair, leaving it stringy and wet, pressed down around his face, and then just stands where he is, eyes closed and mouth tilted upward into just a hint of a smile, until the hot water runs out.

When he has dried himself off and dressed in his new clothes, Jacob goes looking for Roth. There is a moment, just after he steps out of the bathroom but before his eyes find Roth where he sits on the opposite side of the room, when Roth is able to watch Jacob unobserved.

His eyes hone in on Jacob's face, fresh and clean for the first time, and in that moment Roth's motivation for helping Jacob is absolutely clear. Somehow, as wildly impossible as it may seem, Roth has fallen for Jacob.

And he has fallen hard.

Then Jacob turns and sees him, and Roth rearranges his face to better hide his feelings. Jacob is less good at hiding his feelings, and when he looks at Roth there is just a hint of adoration in his eyes for the man that has saved him. "Thanks," he says, into the silence of the room.

"Of course, darling," Roth says. "It was my pleasure."

-/-

(Present Day)

-/-

Jacob walks through the Alhambra's atrium, and it is empty. Of course it is, that's not where Roth would choose to wait for him. Jacob heads for the stage, and finds Roth just where he expects. He stands at the very back of the cavernous room, leaning against the railing behind the very last row of seats.

Something smells of gasoline.

The door bangs closed behind Jacob. He's not trying to be quiet. But Roth doesn't turn around, doesn't even acknowledge Jacob's arrival. His indifference burns worse than any fire.

(Any fire except, maybe, the one Jacob had almost killed his sister with. He closes his eyes as the realization washes over him again—he can't imagine the horror of his mistake will ever fade)

"All the world's a stage," Roth says, and although his posture is casual his voice is strong. It booms out into the empty theatre, echoing and projecting. "And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts."

"Roth—"

The older man turns in one single motion, and fixes Jacob with a look of such intensity that Jacob's voice freezes in his throat. "That's not true though, is it?" he asks.

"It—what's not true?"

"The stage," Roth says. "The idea that we may play at being something we're not, that our lives are just a never ending parade of parts. That we can march across the stage, wearing a costume and a mask, and _become_ something else. We don't change, do we Jacob? Three years, you have worked for me, _lived_ for me, and still you could not kill for me."

"I've killed for you," Jacob says. "Plenty of times." He licks his dry lips. "But those were kids you wanted me to kill, and they didn't deserve that."

Roth shakes his head and makes a short, sharp cutting motion with one hand. "It doesn't matter," he says. "They don't matter. What matters is that you did not do as I asked. You went behind my back. You tried to save them." A note of reproach, of betrayal, creeps into his tone. "And I look at you now and I see the same boy I pulled off the streets three years ago—"

"No," Jacob whispers.

"I thought I could change you," Roth says. "But you chose those children over me, Jacob."

"I had to save them," Jacob says. "You don't know what it's like, when nobody cares…" His tongue ties itself into knots, and he has to force himself to keep talking. "You saved me, Roth, and I loved you for it. But I was an orphan long before I met you, and I thought you understood that. I thought you cared."

"I care for you." Roth steps forward, voice rising to a crescendo. He's holding a lighter in one hand, an old fashioned metal one that glints in the theatre's dim lighting. "I love you, Jacob."

He's crying. Jacob, that is—Roth's eyes are dry, his face hard and set in determination. "I love _you_ ," he says. "But I don't understand. You hurt those children, and they were innocent! They lived in a world that hurt them over and over again, and you were supposed to help them! The way you helped me! But you killed them."

Roth looks at him. And he says, "I'd do it again."

It takes Jacob two steps to reach Roth.

It takes him half a second to get a grip on his knife and bring it forward.

It takes an eternity to bury the knife deep in Roth's chest.

Roth smiles, he laughs, and blood bubbles out of his mouth as he the lighter drops from numb fingers—it sparks, _ignites_ —and maybe Jacob should have put it all together the second he smelled gasoline. He'd come here to kill Roth, and Roth knows Jacob better even than Jacob knows himself. Of course he'd known that. Of course he'd be ready to make sure they'll leave this world together, burning just as Jacob has burned so many on Roth's orders.

Flames spring up around them, roaring and burning, but Roth is not as good an arsonist as Jacob is, or even Jack. The flames will build, but Jacob still has time to escape. If he wants to, if he leaves _now_. Or he can stay here, with Roth, just as Roth wants him to. When the fire is out, someone will find their bodies lying side by side in the ruins of the theatre that had been everything to Roth.

Jacob lowers Roth to the ground, clutching at him, squeezing his hand tight.

Roth splutters, coughing, and Jacob can smell the blood even above the gasoline and the ashes around them. "Darling," Roth manages to choke out at last. "What a night! The stuff of legends!"

Jacob doesn't want to be a legend, though, he's never wanted that. He's only ever wanted Roth, and he doesn't—he doesn't understand how everything has broken so quickly. "Why did you do it?" he demands. "All of it?"

"What?" Roth is still smiling, even though the Jacob knows he must be in intense pain. "Snap a baby crow's neck between my thumb and forefinger? Slice to bits the ones you deep innocent? Keep the world in its divine manic state? For the same reason I do anything!"

He lunges forward, catching Jacob off guard. His kiss tastes of blood, a strange, metallic tang that bites at Jacob's lips and tongue as he kisses back. The whole thing lasts barely a second, it's quick and urgent because they both know it will be the last kiss they ever share. Then Roth falls back, a horrible, wet sound bubbling from him. "Why not?" he asks.

For a long, frozen moment—as the fire burns around them, as Roth wheezes and laughs and struggles for breath—Jacob is calm. He understands. In that moment, just for that moment, everything makes sense. They could do this a hundred different ways, in a hundred different worlds. But they're not the same, they never have been and they never will be. In this moment, Jacob is full of the certainty that no matter what they do, no matter when or where or how they meet, he and Roth will always end in exactly this way—with Roth dead at Jacob's hand as flames roar around them, the taste of Roth's last kiss floating like a ghost across Jacob's lips.

He will always love Roth. For everything he is, for everything he's done for Jacob. But that doesn't change anything. It doesn't change who Jacob is, and it doesn't change who Roth is. Roth is a monster that will kill children to make a point, to _test_ Jacob. And that's not okay. Someday, Jacob will have to figure out how to reconcile these two parts of Roth, but that day is not today.

Today, Jacob is more concerned with simple survival. He squeezes Roth's hand one more time, watches Roth's chest go still and his eyes grow dim. The laughter fades to nothing.

Then Jacob jumps to his feet and _runs_.

Roth must have planned this, he must have spread the gasoline absolutely everywhere, because the whole building is on fire by the time Jacob tries to run. His first try at getting out leads to a blocked door, and his second ends when he burns his hand on a strip of metal. In the end, as smoke chokes at his lungs, Jacob finds a third door and bursts through it, into the alley outside.

Three years ago to the day, Roth had appeared to him here, _exactly here_ , an impossible figure bathed in light and welcoming Jacob into the theatre, into his life, into his love.

Jacob leaves the same way, running as hard as he can, and does not slow down until the smoke he's breathed in catches up to him. Then he stops, reaching out with one hand to steady himself against the nearest building, wheezing and coughing.

He looks back, and he can see the fire from here. And he decides that this will be the last one he ever sets, because in the past three days fire has taken everything from Jacob. Roth is dead. Evie might still die, and she'll certainly never want him. She…

Well, she's still alive, isn't she? Roth is dead but Evie is alive, and Jacob needs… something. He needs to not be alone, he needs—

He needs Roth.

No, Roth is dead by Jacob's hand.

He needs Evie.

 _No_ , Evie is burned and broken and it's all Jacob's fault.

Where else is he supposed to go? Maybe he should have let himself die in the Alhambra, with Roth…

The thought hits him all at once and Jacob collapses. His legs give out under him and he falls to the ground, holding himself, crying, rocking from side to side. The world shrinks to nothing but the tears on his face and the smoke in his lungs, and for an endless eternity he stays where he is, locked in his own private suffering.

When Jacob comes to himself he is numb, and his arms are bleeding from where his fingernails have cut into the skin. He wishes he still had his knife, but he'd left it with— _in_ —Roth. No easy way out for him now.

In the end, it is his feet that save him. They have always been impulsive, carrying him along to places he is not entirely sure he wants to go. Now they take him clear across the city to the hospital where Evie is. They carry him to her room, and deposit him in her doorway.

Traitorous feet. Jacob doesn't want to be here.

Henry is sitting at Evie's side, eyes closed. He doesn't look like he's actually asleep, more like he physically can't keep them open any longer. Jacob stops in the doorway, suddenly nervous. It feels like his stomach is full of worms, crawling through his insides, eating him—

He backs up, shaking his head. He can't stay here, he doesn't deserve to be here. Jacob had accused Roth of being a monster but isn't he one, too? Hasn't he killed and hurt and burned his way through London without a thought in his head for what he's doing to others?

For three years, Jacob has thought of nothing but Roth, of pleasing him. Now that Roth is gone, it's like he has to find a whole new way of looking at the world. It doesn't matter what Roth thinks about anything anymore, because Roth is dead. There are other people whose opinions Jacob has to start thinking about now. Evie, maybe. Jacob knows terrifyingly little about her, but she'd looked for him. That has to mean she'd cared, doesn't it?

Cared, past tense, of course. Because Jacob had walked into her boyfriend's shop, he'd pulled a knife on her and he'd threatened her. She'd been trying to tell him something—had she been trying to tell him about all _this_? Part of Jacob is glad he hadn't given her the chance. What if she'd told him that she's his sister, and he'd ignored her or laughed in her face, _and then tried to kill her anyway_? It's the only thing Jacob can think of that would make all this worse than it already is.

Maybe her opinion is what matters now, the way Roth's had been what mattered before. Because he needs _someone_ to tell him what's right and what's wrong, Roth's death has opened a hole in him and everything that mattered in the last three years is spilling out through the gash.

Jacob tries to imagine a world where he doesn't need anyone else to tell him what to think and feel and want. But that would leave him to decide those things for himself, and Jacob isn't sure he can do that. He doesn't _know_ what he wants, he looks at himself and he realizes with a cold shiver of horror that he barely knows himself at all. He's twenty one years old, and Jacob Church is still a stranger to him.

"Excuse me, sir," a nurse says, and Jacob stumbles away from Evie's door to let her through. The interruption startles him out of his spiraling thoughts and back to the real world. He has to do something, and right now he can only think of going to Evie. He takes a stuttering step into her hospital room, avoiding the nurse and heading for the bedside. Henry's eyes are open, probably startled into waking by the nurse's arrival. But he doesn't say anything and neither does Jacob, not until the nurse has finished whatever she's doing and hurried away again. Then Jacob says—

"I'm not leaving."

"You're not wanted," Henry says.

When is he _ever_ wanted?

"That's okay," Jacob says. "I'm not leaving anyway."

Henry looks at him. "You still smell like smoke," he says.

Jacob just kind of looks at him for a second, trying to figure out how _that's_ relevant. Roth isn't any of Henrys business. He's not any of Evie's business, either, he's _Jacob's_ business. Then he realizes that—oh. "It's not from the fire that almost killed her," he says.

"Right," Henry says, with so much sarcasm that even Jacob catches it. "You just happen to have set _another_ fire between now and then?"

"I didn't set it," Jacob mutters. He sits in the chair next to Henry's and slouches. "But the man that told me to kill her died in that fire."

This seems to relax Henry, just a little bit. He continues to watch Jacob with clear suspicion, but doesn't tell him he should leave. They sit there for hours, and then Jacob asks, "Where's… where's her dad?"

His dad, too, and even in this situation the realization sends a warm thrill through Jacob. But he isn't sure if he's ready to say that out loud.

"Around," Henry says vaguely. He rubs at his face. "I don't know. He doesn't handle this kind of stuff well. Last I heard, my dad was trying to talk him back into the hospital."

"He should be here," Jacob mutters, because after all _he's_ here, and he can't imagine that there's anyone in the world less welcome at Evie's side.

Henry gives him a look and lapses again into silence. But he's the one that starts the conversation again a few minutes later. "They had to cut her hair away," he says, gesturing to Evie's burned and bald scalp. "To see how bad the damage was."

"How bad was it?" Jacob asks.

"Bad," Henry says. Then, almost grudgingly, "But not as bad as it could have been." He shakes his head. "That's not the point, though." He stretches his hand forward, as if desperate to touch Evie… but then stops and pulls back, away from her damaged skin. "She had beautiful hair. It's the only thing she ever really does for herself anymore, everything else was always searching and searching… but then sometimes I'd walk in on her in front of the mirror, doing her hair. It would take her a while, and I always tried to make sure I was around until she finished. It's the only time I ever get to see the old Evie these days. It's the only time she ever smiles…"

Evie's mouth is half open, her face drawn and pale in sleep. Jacob tries to think of her smiling.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I shouldn't have—" He jumps to his feet, turning toward the wall and hunching into himself. "I can't apologize enough," he says. "I tried to kill her because I thought she didn't matter, because—I don't know, but I was so _wrong_. If I could go back and undo it I would, I swear I would, I—"

"Jacob."

The voice that interrupts him is hoarse and ragged, not Henry's—Jacob turns, and his heart is hammering, and he meets Evie's just barely open eyes. She looks woozy and in pain, but she's looking at him, almost into him, like she knows everything he's thinking and feeling.

"Evie?" he says.

She looks like she's trying to smile. "You're here."

How can she smile at him? How can she look at him, at the person that put her here in the first place, and not _hate_ him?

"I'm—" his brain goes blank, his stomach clenches. "I'm sorry," Jacob says, and he runs.


	6. Chapter 6

(Present Day)

-/-

Evie's smile fades as Jacob stutters his apology and runs off. The brief light of excitement that had glinted in her eyes is suddenly extinguished, and she turns to Henry. He is on his feet in an instant, reaching for her but hesitating. "He was my brother," she says. "Henry—" she shudders and then winces, apparently in pain. "He hates me."

Henry is distracted—he keeps looking between Evie and the door, obviously torn. "I should call the doctors," he starts, but Evie interrupts him.

"Don't," she begs. "I don't need them, I need…" but she trails off, her face an unreadable mix of pain, physical and emotional. She tries to breathe normally, but the bandages wrapped around her many burns restrict her. "Why did he do all this?" she asks him. "Why is he working for Roth?" A sob catches in her throat. "Why did he _leave_ me again?"

"Evie…" Henry hesitates, utterly helpless and completely lost for words as Evie cries. At some point a passing nurse notices that Evie is awake, and she calls at once for a doctor. For a while all is chaos, and Henry is politely but firmly told to get out of the room and give the doctors room to do their jobs. But when they have assured themselves that Evie is still stable, they clear the room to head for whatever the next disaster might be, and let Henry back in.

Evie is calm when he comes back to her, and by the stiffness in his shoulders and his back, he is suspicious of this sudden calmness. She looks up at him with a face empty of all expression and says, "I've been very stupid, haven't I?" she asks.

"No," Henry says at once.

"I have," Evie says. "All my life, I've been building up this idea of my brother in my head. I had a picture of who he was supposed to be, what his life was supposed to be like. I always imagined one day we would find each other, and we would just know one another. We'd just look at each other, and all the years apart wouldn't matter. But that was stupid."

"It's not stupid," Henry says. He sounds reluctant, like defending Jacob is physically painful to him. "He's your family. It's only natural to want a good relationship with your family."

"But he's _not_ family," Evie says. She tries to turn over, but grimaces from the pain and stops. "I thought when I found my brother, I'd be getting a friend. And instead I got… Jacob Church. And he's _awful_."

"Evie," Henry says. "Evie, don't say that."

"It's not even that he hates me," Evie goes on. Relentlessly, like she's determined to hurt herself as much as she can before someone else can come along and do it for her. Someone like Jacob, perhaps. "I could live with that, I think. It's that he doesn't know me, and he hates me. He doesn't need a reason, he just wanted someone to hurt." She closes her eyes, won't look at Henry.

"You did beat him up last night," Henry says. "And steal some stuff. Most people would call that a reason." His voice almost suggests that this is meant to be a joke, but Evie doesn't laugh.

"He meant to kill me," Evie says. "When he came to the shop, the look in his eyes… he knew exactly what he was doing."

They sit together in silence for a while. Henry fidgets nervously as Evie stares at nothing. Finally, Henry says, "So what are you going to do now?"

"I…" She considers this for a long moment. "I suppose I'll try to get back into school. Somewhere far away from London. I'll put as much space between myself and Jacob as I can manage, and then I'll start trying to forget him."

Henry says nothing, but maybe he doesn't need to. Evie's eyes narrow at his disapproving silence. "What?" she asks. "You've been telling me for three years to let go of my brother, and now that I'm takin you up on your advice you suddenly think it's a bad idea?"

"I don't think I've ever said let go," Henry says. "I've known you your whole life, Evie. You are… far and away the strongest person I've ever met. I've always loved that about you. And when it's for your brother you're _more_ than strong. You're brave and determined and—look, Evie, your brother terrifies me. He's a criminal, he's a _killer_. I'm trying to look past that for now because he's your brother too. You've always wanted to find him, I know that, but for the past three years you've let yourself be obsessed. The _obsession_ has to stop. The _obsession_ almost got you killed. But don't give up on your brother. You'd be giving up on all the best parts of yourself along with him. Your bravery, your strength, your determination. Your love for him."

"I don't _want_ to give up," Evie admits. "But—well, he's made his feelings pretty clear, hasn't he?"

Henry shrugs. "I'm not sure," he says. "He tried to kill you, but he also came back. He sat here with me for hours. I don't think I've ever seen a man more confused by himself than your brother is, Evie."

"Did you talk to him?" Evie asks.

"Not much," Henry says. "A little."

"What did you say?"

"I told him he wasn't wanted," Henry says. "But he stayed anyway. We talked about you, a little."

Evie looks away, making an obvious effort to mask her eagerness to hear more.

"I don't think…" Henry groans. "Evie, this is hard. If he was anyone else, I'd tell you to get as far away from him as possible. I mean, I told _him_ to leave. But he stayed, and I think that counts for a lot, and he _is_ your brother. So I guess I don't think you should give up on him yet."

"But—"

"Do you remember the day we first kissed?" Henry asks, softly.

Evie's mouth twitches into a grim smile. If she's surprised by the change in subject, she at least doesn't question it. "I was eighteen," she says. "I had just left school to focus on my search. Dad was angry, he swore he wasn't going to speak to me until I gave up on it, but I was fixed on the idea of coming here and finding my brother."

"And you showed up on my doorstep," Henry says. "Your dad called me as soon as you left, so I knew what had happened, and I sort of expected you there. But I thought you'd be upset." He laughs a little. "I had your favorite ice cream ready and everything. But you just looked at me, and I don't think I've ever seen so much determination in anyone before. And you said, _I'm going to find him_. Just like that, like it was fact. Like _the sky is blue,_ or _the Earth goes around the sun_ , or—"

"Or _I love you_ ," Evie says. "The way you said it to me, right after that." She reaches one hand toward Henry and he takes it, holding it gently and carefully, like something precious. "I wasn't expecting it. I don't think there was a thought in my head except for how to get to my brother. He was the only thing in the world until you said that, and then my world was twice as big."

They look at each other, a long, deep, unreadable look. Neither says anything, but Evie relaxes and nods, and Henry sits (carefully) down next to her. After a few minutes Henry's phone buzzes and he glances down at it. "Your dad's on his way," he says. "What are you going to tell him?"

Evie considers this. Henry watches, silent, face carefully blank. When Evie has had time to consider, she says, "I know his name now. I know what he looks like. It won't take me twenty one years to find him this time. So… maybe I can afford to relax a little bit. I still want to go back to school. But I'm not ready to give up on him, either. Maybe this time, he might even come find me."

"It's possible," Henry says. "I really think it might be possible."

Ethan Frye appears suddenly in her doorway, disheveled and panting. He looks like he's run here, and the terrified look on his face doesn't fade until Evie smiles at him. "Dad," she says. "You came—" And then Henry has to very quickly shift aside as Ethan presses close to his brother. His hands hover uselessly over her, trying to find somewhere safe to touch, to hold her. "My brother came, too."

Ethan freezes. "Your brother?"

"His name's Jacob," Evie says, and she watches Ethan carefully as he struggles to process the news.

"He's alive," Ethan says after a moment.

"He's alive," Evie agrees.

"What's he like?"

Evie's expression droops. "Hurt," she says. "Broken." She looks sideways to Henry, and then back at her father. "He needs help."

"So then help him," Ethan says. His voice is urgent, face suddenly shadowed in a way that emphasizes the careworn lines on his face. "Evie, don't make my mistakes."

"I make enough of my own," she quips. Ethan doesn't laugh.

"You told me years ago that I was wrong to abandon him," he says. He looks at Henry, and adds, "Your father has been telling me for decades."

Henry nods.

"But…" he looks at Evie. "I didn't understand that until you left, too. I've missed you, Evie. And it just makes me think how for every single thing I'm missing about you, there must be… ten, twenty, a hundred things I missed out on with your… with Jacob. I'm sorry."

"You should apologize to _him_ ," Evie says quietly.

"I will," Ethan says. "If I ever get the chance, I'll do everything I can to make it up to him."

"Good," Evie says. "Because whether he knows it or not, he needs us." Her eyes stray away from her father and Henry, towards the door. She watches it hopefully, like she's wishing Jacob would just walk through it. He doesn't, but the hope doesn't fade. The light of it makes her whole face look brighter and more alive. "And we need him, too."

-/-

(Six months later)

-/-

Jacob is barefoot, but it's warm out so that's not so bad. It's May, and the air smells of spring with the promise of summer, and Jacob likes the feel of the ground under his toes. Besides, it's worth it for the odd looks and double takes he gets from people when they pass. They take in his nice clothes—new and comfortable and sturdy, but not fancy—and approve of him. Then they look down and see his feet and make faces at him. Most of them don't seem to realize they're doing it, but Jacob likes making faces right back at them anyway.

It's a good metaphor for how he's feeling these days. Sort of okay at first glance, totally messed up underneath. It's been half a year since Jacob killed Roth and left Evie. Some days he's glad he did both of those things. Roth deserved to die, and he'll never hurt anyone else now. As for Evie, she's much better off without him.

But then there are days when the sheer weight of being all alone in the world crashes over Jacob at once. Some days he can't even force himself out of bed—he just lies in his mess of blankets and pillows and whatever other crap he hasn't bothered to clean up, and cries in self-pity. Some days he tries to imagine Roth is in the room with him—he'll have long, winding conversations with him, the same as they used to when Roth was alive. But they always end the same way, with Jacob asking his imagined Roth _why_. Why did he kill those children, why did he feel like he had to test Jacob… why did he leave?

Jacob can never quite think up an answer that makes sense.

Missing Evie is different. Jacob barely knows her, and when he tries to imagine her in the room with him she is silent and still. He wants to know her better, but… no. She's so much better off without him.

He tried googling her once, but nothing he found was any help. She doesn't even have a facebook page.

Maybe that's why he finds himself here today, in his new clothes and his bare feet, staring in silence at the church his father had left him at twenty one and a half years ago. It's stupid to think coming here will help him understand his sister more. She hadn't even been here that night, as far as he knows. He's not even sure if Evie is older or younger than he is. Maybe she hadn't been born yet.

Jacob sags tiredly against the church's wall. It has a crumbling, abandoned look to it, and he wonders if it might be an ex-church. Maybe nobody comes here anymore. That would just figure, wouldn't it? Absolutely typical, a perfect dead-end start to a dead-end life.

He's tired. He's always tired, these days. Getting through life without Roth isn't as hard as it had been at the beginning, but Jacob still struggles to figure out what he's supposed to do to fill the time. It's easiest to just sleep, and weirdly enough that just saps his energy more. Jacob lets himself sort of slump farther against the wall until he ends up sitting on the ground, leaning against the grubby bricks. He closes his eyes. Maybe he dozes off—certainly a good deal of time passes as he sits there. Hours at least.

"Hey."

His eyes fly open but it's too late to run. Evie is suddenly sitting next to him against the wall, and her smile is nervous but her eyes are _certain_.

"Hey," Jacob croaks. What is she doing here? Just showing up out of the blue after months and months?

She looks at his bare feet. "You could have worn shoes," she tells him, like that's the most important thing to say after all this time apart.

"Ah, right," Jacob says. He doesn't want to sound mean, but it just kind of comes out that way. "I wonder why that didn't occur to me. _Brilliant,_ absolutely brilliant."

Evie's smile drops. "I was just making an observation."

Jacob hesitates a beat, brain still struggling to catch up to the shock of his sister suddenly appearing at his side. "You look better," he says at last. And it's true. Her skin is still a motley collection of burn scars in various stages of healing, but none of them look as bad as they had when Jacob last saw her in the hospital. Her hair is starting to grow back, too. Henry must be thrilled.

"I'm getting there," Evie says. "I thought coming here would help."

"To the church?" Jacob asks.

"To see you," Evie says, and Jacob flushes in embarrassed confusion. "Dad called me. He comes by here most mornings now. I don't know why, but… well, he says it's helping him. He saw you and thought I might want to talk to you first. I came as fast as I could."

"You _did_?"

Her smile comes back, and Jacob feels unfamiliar muscles working in his own face. It's a surprise to realize he's smiling as well. "I did," Evie says. "Please don't run again, Jacob. I just want to talk to you."

"But I hurt you."

She hesitates. "I know," she says at last. "But I've waited too long for this." She wraps her arms around her knees and tilts her head sideways to look at him. Her smile gets a little bit bigger. "Henry remembers when we were born," she says. "When—"

"Wait a second," Jacob interrupts. "This has been bothering me. Were we born on the same day? Which one of us is older?"

"I think I beat you by about four minutes," Evie says.

Jacob laughs aloud. It makes his chest hurt. Part of it's physical. He hasn't laughed in a while. But part of it's something deeper. If life was fair, this wouldn't be such a surprise. He wouldn't just be finding out he has a big sister and a twin twenty one years into life. " _Twins_?" he says. "We're twins?"

Evie nods. "When I was a kid, Henry used to tell me the story over and over again. I wanted to meet you so badly. And now that I have met you, I want to know you." She reaches for his hand, giving Jacob plenty of opportunity to pull away. He doesn't—he just stares at it for a long moment, and then slowly reaches out for her as well. Their fingers twist together. Jacob's are rough and hard from a lifetime of misfortune; Evie's are scarred from a single night's worth.

"You should hate me," Jacob says.

"I should," Evie agrees. "But I can't."

He hasn't smiled this much since Roth dies. "Tell me about yourself," he says, and Evie does. She tells him a lot, but the thing that sticks out to Jacob is how often she mentions him. They'd only met six months ago, but so much of Evie's life has been spent searching for him. It's funny to think that all those years he spent alone, in foster care, there had been someone thinking about him, looking for him. Wanting him.

"What about you?" Evie asks at last. "Tell me about your life."

"It's not so great," Jacob says.

"Tell me anyway?"

So he does. It's the first time in… well, it's the first time Jacob has ever told anyone the whole story of his life, but it seems right to share it with Evie. Even Roth hadn't known everything there is to know about Jacob, but Evie is his sister. His twin sister. Talking to her, sitting here side by side and holding her hand, it makes the whole world just seem to fit together a little bit better. Jacob starts at the beginning, at being found just here, on the steps of this church. He tells her he'd almost died, and then they'd taken him into foster care afterward.

He glosses over the endless years of his childhood, being shuffled from one place to another until finally—London. Jacob talks about being arrested for the first time on his fifteenth birthday (and it might be his imagination, but Evie almost looks like she's going to interrupt at that point—but she doesn't).

For a second or two he hesitates, and then he tells her about meeting Roth. About loving Roth. About killing Roth.

"Haven't been doing much since then," he says. "Just kind of floating around."

"With no shoes," Evie says.

"I do _have_ shoes," Jacob says. "But it's nice out. I don't _need_ shoes. He jerks his head in the right general direction. "I'm renting a room down here," he says. "And I have _two_ pairs of shoes there."

"Two. Impressive." She grins and half laughs at him. Or with him, maybe, because Jacob doesn't feel like he's being mocked. "Are you doing alright for yourself, Jacob? Do you have enough money, or—"

"Oh, _money_ ," Jacob mutters. "I have more money than I know what to do with." She raises her eyebrows and Jacob shrugs. "Roth left me everything," he tells her. It had hurt, learning that. Because Roth had loved him enough to make arrangements for Jacob to be able to take care of himself, but Jacob had been the one to kill him. "He left me in charge of his gangs. He left me the Alhambra—I mean I burned that down, so I don't actually have it, but I have the land and a ridiculous insurance payout."

"But it was arson," Evie says. "Does insurance pay out for arson?"

"It does if nobody can prove it wasn't accidental," Jacob says. "Trust me, they tried." He sighs. "And he left me his place, but I got rid of that. Too many memories. I tried to get rid of his cat too, but no one would take the bastard." Not that Jacob had tried very hard. He can't stand that cat most of the time, but he's pretty sure the cat misses Roth too. It's been quieter and more subdued since Roth died, and it's nice not to be the only one that misses him.

"So what are you doing with everything Roth left you?" Evie asks.

"Well, I got the cat fixed—" Evie snorts with surprised laughter, and Jacob raises his voice a little, grinning himself. "It seemed like a good place to start! But other than that…" he shrugs. "Dunno. I'm still trying to figure everything out, I guess."

"Well what do you _want_ to do?" Evie asks.

Jacob rolls his eyes. "If I knew that, I'd be doing it already. Wouldn't I?"

"No," Evie says. "Not if you didn't think you could." She leans forward, squeezing his hand a little. "If you could do anything in the world, what would you do?"

He'd follow her home. He'd go back in time twenty one and a half years, and stop their father from giving him away. "Dunno," Jacob says again.

"I have an idea," Evie says.

"Yea?"

"Yea." She stands up, tugging on his hand. When Jacob follows her, when they're both standing, they're the same exact height. Well—Evie's a hair or two taller. She's wearing shoes. But they're pretty close. And Jacob can see some of himself in her face, even behind the burn scars that he really hopes will go away eventually. "Let's go home."

It's almost like she's reading his mind. Jacob tries to pretend like this isn't exactly what he'd wanted to do in the first place. "I don't know if I have a home," he says, but Evie isn't listening anymore.

"Don't be like that," she says dismissively. She's strong, stronger than he is—Jacob remembers with a wince of pain how easily she'd thrashed him at Robert's fight club. Months ago now, but he can still feel a ghost of the bruises. "You have a home with us, whenever you want it."

"But—"

"And you _do_ want it. Just so you know." She half turns, putting one hand on her hip. "Six months ago, I told dad and Henry that I was going to ease up a little on finding you. And I have. I've kept an eye out, I've asked around, but I'm not killing myself over you anymore."

"That's good?"

"That's good," she agrees, ignoring the hint of a question in his voice. "And I've done pretty well at it. I'm starting school again in the fall. I'm—" her face turns a pretty shade of pink. "Henry and I are going to marry, in a year or two. I'm making friends. Not many, but a few. I've been moving on, but not so much that I won't help you when you need it. And you do, Jacob Frye, you need me just as badly as I need you."

Jacob stares at her. He thinks he's just felt his jaw literally drop, and he doesn't know if he's more surprised by the fact that she's just admitted that she needs him (because Jacob is a mess, of course he needs Evie, but Evie is fixing her life, she's moving on—but she still needs him?), or by the way she says his name.

 _Jacob Frye_.

It fits him at once, in a way Jacob Church has never managed. Jacob mouths it to himself (Jacob Frye, Jacob _Frye, Jacob Frye_ ), and then nods. "Okay," he says. "I'll come home with you. But—what then?"

She shrugs. "Up to you. Whatever you want, as long as you don't leave again."

"I told you," Jacob says. "I don't know what I want." (but he knows he won't, _can't_ , leave)

Evie starts walking, pulling Jacob along with her, but seems to be seriously considering it. "Well," she says at last. "I'd suggest doing something about Roth's gangs. Breaking them up, putting the worst of them in prison. Helping the kids out."

"Yes," Jacob says slowly. "But—well, I've always kind of wanted a gang of my own."

" _Jacob_ ," Evie says, exasperated and fond. She sounds for all the world like they've been having this argument their whole life. It's... comfortable.

"No, really!"

"You can't start your own gang."

"I'd call them the Rooks."

He's thinking about the little bird Roth had killed in front of him, and then the children he'd tracked down and butchered later. Maybe Evie hears something in his voice that tells her he's serious, because she glances sideways at him, one eyebrow raised, instead of arguing.

"We wouldn't be like other gangs," he says. "We'd do good. There are plenty in London that could do with some unofficial help. Kids like us. Wives with abusive husbands. Husbands with abusive wives. All kinds of people."

"Kids like us?" Evie echoes. "We didn't exactly grow up in the same circumstances. What are you talking about?"

"You know. Alone."

"Oh." Evie squeezes his hand again. "Right. That." She shakes her head and starts walking faster. "Well you're not alone now," she says. "Neither am I, and neither of us will have to be ever again."

Jacob beams and lets the subject drop. He'll work on getting Evie on his side about the Rooks later—he has a funny feeling that anything he tries from here on out will work better with his sister at his side. For now, though. "Yea," he agrees. "Let's just go home."

And so they do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it! I have a couple stray thoughts for other things in this verse. I set up Jack specifically for a Jack-the-Ripper-esque story set a few years after this, if anyone's interested. And I have a couple stray ideas for bringing in characters from other games, but they still need some serious work. Anyway, I'd love to hear if you guys are interested in seeing more of this. But either way, thanks for getting this far. Hope you liked it. :)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note about timing: this part of the story takes place twelve years after the last chapter. But, because people asked to see Jacob and Ethan reunite, I decided to add that as a flashback at the beginning. So where it says 'twelve years ago,' that's right after the last chapter leaves off. 'Present day' from this point out is twelve years after the 'present day' of the last six chapters.
> 
> ...yea, I didn't know there was going to be a giant time jump when I started this.

 

**-//-**

**PART TWO**

**JACK THE RIPPER**

**-/-**

(Twelve Years Ago)

-/-

Jacob looks out of place in this house, and Evie can't stop looking at him. He'd started out sitting at the kitchen table, then switched to pacing back and forth in front of the window, then moved to the couch where he huddles in a corner and looks very much like he's regretting coming home with her.

"It's going to be okay," Evie tells him, and his face flickers through a horrifying range of emotions before he takes a breath and nods unconvincingly. It must be exhausting to feel all that at once. Fear, dread, nervousness, excitement—Evie moves to the couch and some of his nervousness at least seems to ease a little. That's something to be grateful for, at least.

"What if he hates me?" Jacob asks. His bare feet curl nervously against the couch cushions.

Evie's first impulse is to say that no, of course their father won't hate him, if only to reassure Jacob. But the truth is Ethan had already abandoned Jacob once, and that had been when he was a completely innocent newborn. Twenty one years later, Jacob is a murderer, an arsonist, a broken shell of a man still mourning the monster that he'd loved (or still loves) and had killed. Ethan Frye is a stubborn man, and not inclined to give second chances—the odds are very good that he _will_ hate Jacob.

"It doesn't matter," she says instead. "There's nothing you can do that will drive _me_ away, no matter what dad says."

"Well, that's more than I had this morning," Jacob says, and tries to smile. It doesn't quite work and Evie knows—as clearly as if she'd been in his head, thinking his thoughts—that he doesn't believe her. And for good reason, really. It's been less than two hours since she found him in a dazed confusion, leaning against the wall of the church where he'd been abandoned as a child, and convinced him to come home with her. It's not a lot of time, in the grand scheme of things.

Evie takes his hand and squeezes. Jacob looks up at her face, then uncurls a little to lean against her. He is warm and solid and real against her side, _real_ after all this time as a distant dream. Evie can smell him now that he's so close, a faint and not unpleasant odor that some part of her mind instinctively labels as _home_.

"Do you want to see a picture of us?" Evie asks.

He stirs slightly. "Where'd you get a picture of us?"

She pulls out her phone, using the hand that isn't clinging to Jacob, and scrolls through her pictures until she gets to the oldest. Years ago now, she'd scanned the picture Henry had given her for her tenth birthday. Then, just to make sure she never loses it, she'd copied it to every computer and phone she's ever owned. Evie tilts the phone to Jacob can get a better look at the two of them as newborns, curled up together and sleeping peacefully. Jacob stares at it in absolute fascination, looking for all the world like a little boy faced with some curious oddity.

"I've never seen a picture of myself as a baby," he says.

"Why not?"

"Well—who would have taken it?" Jacob asks. "And who would have thought to show me?"

Evie looks down at her lap, wishing she hadn't asked. It's so easy to forget the life Jacob has lead before now. "I'll send this one to you," she says.

"Thank you," Jacob says. He shifts a little, then says, "It's not fair. We should have stayed together."

He's preaching to the choir. "I know," Evie says.

"I would have been good," he says in a small, little boy voice that perfectly matches the crumbling expression on his face.

When their father eventually walks in a few minutes later, Jacob is pressed against Evie, face buried in her shoulder as he sobs. He seems completely unaware that they are no longer alone, and Evie fixes their father with a look. Don't mess with him, she tries to say without words. This is my brother and I won't let anyone hurt him ever again. Not even you.

He nods, as nervous as Jacob, and creeps upstairs and away from them.

It takes Jacob a long time to calm himself, but Evie never tries to rush him. He has every right to his heartbreak, and she can't even imagine the things he's been through. Besides, just because one of them has to look strong and at least keep from crying doesn't mean that her heart isn't breaking. She keeps thinking of all the years they missed out on being together, and over and over again she has to push back the tears that prick in the corner of her eyes. Evie's trying to imagine being five, ten, fifteen years old, and having Jacob at her side. She aches for those lost years.

She's grown up dreaming of exactly that, but suddenly she can't picture it. Evie closes her eyes, and all she can think of is the current, real Jacob, broken and imperfect as he is. "Evie?" Jacob says.

"Yea?"

Jacob hesitates. "Nothing," he admits. "I just—I like your name."

"Jacob," Evie says. "I like yours too, Jacob Frye."

He grins at the sound of it, just a little. "I don't know if I'm him yet," he says. "I've been Jacob Church my whole life, I don't know if I can just… change, all of a sudden."

Evie hesitates. She's only just starting to realize how badly Jacob has been starved of emotional support, of people to reassure him that he's worth something and tell him he's wanted. She hasn't yet known him long enough to know exactly what the right words are, but she thinks she recognizes that he's asking for something now, testing her whether he knows it or not.

Luckily, Jacob seems to really _want_ her to say the right thing, and that helps a little. He looks at her with something desperate in his eyes, and says, "I mean, Jacob Frye sounds like a pretty decent guy, you know? And I'm… not." He puts his hand, very gently, over one of the still healing burn scars on Evie's arm. It hurts a bit, but no worse than a tingle, and Evie doesn't pull away. "I did this to you. I did worse to other people. I liked it, I was proud of what I'd done."

"I'm hearing a lot of past tense there," Evie says carefully.

"Well I'm not exactly proud of it anymore, am I?" Jacob says. "It's like—I feel like I'm just waking up, and everything I did before killing Roth was a nightmare. And now…"

"Now you're going to be better," Evie says. "Jacob, listen. I'm not going to lie to you. You've done some really horrible things. But some of them were things you did to _me_ , so I feel I'm in a uniquely good position to tell you that you don't have to keep doing them. I can tell, you... really want to be a good person."

"You don't think it's too late?"

Evie shakes her head. "Never."

This seems to legitimately reassure Jacob. He leans back against the couch, relaxing for the first time since walking into the house. "I never thought I had a sister," Jacob says. "But even if I had, I don't think I would have imagined her like you."

"And that's good?"

He grins at her, and this time it's quick and confident. Even though Evie is almost positive the confidence is fake, it makes her feel better to see it. "It's really good. _You're_ really good." His eyes flick up to the ceiling, where Evie can hear their father pacing back and forth. "He's home?" Jacob asks.

"Yes," Evie says. "Do you want to meet him?"

"I already did, technically," Jacob says. "But he didn't know who he was. _I_ didn't know who I was." He trails off, half mumbling, uncertain and obviously nervous.

Evie sighs. "Jacob," she says. "Do you want to come meet your dad?"

"You mean the person that gave me away?" Jacob mutters. But his whole body is tense, he's leaning forward off the couch like he's desperate to go upstairs and see their father for himself.

"I mean your dad," Evie says.

His expression flashes from hopeful to terrified in half a second. "Might as well get it over with," he says, with a show of false bravado that Evie can't bring herself to call him out on.

He sticks close to Evie as they head upstairs and toward their father's bedroom. Evie sees him looking around, seeing everything through new eyes, and it strikes her how utterly unfair this is. She had grown up here, and in a fair world Jacob would have too. This wouldn't be his first time seeing everything.

"Dad?" Evie calls. He doesn't answer but she pushes open his door anyway and then gestures for Jacob to follow her when he stays skulking behind her in the hallway. Damn, they're making _her_ nervous now. Why does this have to be so hard? But then, she gets the feeling that a lot of things in this family are going to be hard from now on. She just has to keep reminding herself that it's the hard things that are the most worthwhile.

Their father looks up at Evie and Jacob as they come closer, and Evie does her best to smile. "Dad," she says. "This is Jacob. Jacob, dad."

The introduction is greeted by silence, and then Jacob smiles the saddest smile Evie has ever seen and says, "So…"

Their father springs to his feet and hugs Jacob in one desperate movement. "I'm _sorry_ ," he says.

"Yea, well—" From where she's standing, Evie can see Jacob's face. She can see him freezing up in fear, eyes turning desperately to look at her instead of at their father. "You have reason to be," he says, and his tone is so much harsher than the shaky expression of terror on his face that Evie knows he must be faking.

Evie steps toward them and puts one arm around Jacob and the other around their father. Jacob leans sideways and into her, relaxing for just a second, and their father inches infinitesimally closer to the pair of them.

"This family is really messed up," Evie says. "And we've all done bad things in the past, we've hurt each other and we've hurt other people." She squeezes Jacob more tightly, and he snakes one arm around her shoulders in response. "But I don't want to keep doing that."

"Me neither," Jacob says. "I'm not a good person, and I don't know why either of you would want me—"

"But we do," their father says, and Jacob makes a strange, hiccupping sobbing sound and throws the arm not holding Evie around their father.

Evie isn't sure how long they hug. She knows Jacob cries, again, and she knows she does too. It feels good to let the tears fall after holding them in for so long. It feels good to know that she doesn't have to be lonely anymore because her brother is back.

She's pretty sure their father cries as well, although she's not quite as sure what he's feeling. She can guess, though, some combination of guilt and joy and maybe even fear. Well, that's fair. They're such a mess, all three of them, but maybe now that they're together, things can start getting better. Maybe they'll still cry, but maybe they'll cry less often. Maybe, after a while, they'll even start to smile.

Maybe they'll never be the family they should have been. But maybe, maybe, _maybe_ they can make it work.

"I love you," their father says, to the both of them, and Evie is _happy_.

The hug doesn't last much longer than that, but Jacob hangs around for quite a while. Evie keeps waiting for him to ask if he can stay, because she really wants to see his face when she says yes, but he never does. He just goes on finding reasons to stay, and then somehow it's night and Jacob's looking across the room at her.

"It'd be kind of a pain to go back to where I'm staying tonight," he tells her.

"You're far from here, then?"

"Um…" he tilts his head sideways and narrows his eyes, considering. "I'm not actually sure. I don't know my way around here too well."

"What's the address?" Evie asks. "Put it in your phone, I'm sure you can figure out a way back."

He pulls his phone out of his pocket and gives it the kind of look he might give someone that had killed his first born son. "I wanna stay, Evie," he says. "Don't make me leave."

"Never," she says. "I just wanted to hear you ask."

"Ah!" his expression clears at once, melting into laughter. "You're cruel, Evie!"

"I'm not!"

"Sadistic," he insists. "I still remember when you beat the shit out of me, you know. Did you enjoy that? Bet you did."

"We were both different people then," Evie says, flushing a little. She hadn't known Jacob was her brother that night, and now that she does she sometimes has nightmares of him bleeding and broken on the ground in front of her.

"Yea," Jacob says. "Last time I let you win, and next time I won't."

"Oh, you _let_ me win?"

He spreads his arms, teasing. Evie grins because just seeing him comfortable enough to joke like this is amazing. It's like meeting their father, realizing Ethan doesn't hate him, has lifted some great burden off Jacob's shoulders. "Of course I did. Come back to London with me sometime, we'll have another go in the ring. You'll see who's better then."

Evie has to admit she likes the thought of facing him again, without really trying to hurt him this time. Obviously she'd still win. Jacob's too impulsive, he's cocky, he's—

He's still smiling at her, grinning in a way that makes everything else not matter. "Come on," Evie says. "I'll make up the couch for you."

She doesn't expect him to help but he does, spreading blankets across the couch cushions while she goes hunting for spare pillows. They're neater and less wrinkled than she expects them to be when she comes back. "Not the worst place I've ever stayed," he says.

"Do I want to know what is the worst place?" she asks.

He looks away, smile fading. "On the streets," he says. "For… maybe two months before Roth found me."

"Oh." She doesn't know if she's more upset by the thought of Jacob on the streets, or Jacob in Roth's power. Even now hes dead, the man hangs in the air between them, a wedge driving them apart. "Let's not… can we not talk about him right now?"

"He was everything in my life for three years," Jacob says. "It's hard to move on."

Evie wants to argue, but she's not entirely sure she wants to hear what Jacob would say.

"He did help me, you know," Jacob says. "And… he did love me."

"Then I'm glad—" It's hard to force the words out. "I'm glad you had someone to love you, at least."

Silence for a minute, as Jacob seems to struggle with some complex feeling.

"I keep thinking about those kids," Jacob says, voice hoarse.

"What kids?"

"The ones like me."

Evie patiently waits for more explanation.

"Roth sent me to kill them," Jacob says. "And I wouldn't. Couldn't. I don't know. I told them to leave to get away from him but he found two of them, and I don't know what happened to the others."

"What were their names?" Evie asks.

"I don't know the ones he killed," Jacob says. "But the other two are Clara and Jack." He sits down on the couch, and pulls Evie down after him. "I want to find them. Help them."

"You should."

Jacob nods against her shoulder. He's pressed against her already, in a manner Evie is rapidly coming to recognize as typical of him. He seems to want to touch as much as possible, maybe for comfort, maybe just to assure himself that she's still there. Either way, she doesn't mind. She _is_ still here, she plans to stay here as long as he needs her. Forever, preferably. And it's nice to be a comfort, to be wanted and needed. "Jack needs me, I think," he says. His voice drops a little, slurring a little. When Evie looks at him, she sees his eyes are closed. "I had to hurt him to send him away, and now I need to help him. I have to make it better. He's kind of horrible, but I mean he's just a kid."

"We'll find both of them," Evie says. "We'll start in the morning."

Jacob doesn't answer, not even when Evie calls his name. He just… sleeps. Evie eases him down to the couch, then lies down next to him. Just for a minute, she thinks.

But when she opens her eyes again it's morning. Someone (their father? She hopes so) has pulled one of the blankets over her and Jacob, and they're pressed together so tightly they might as well be one person. Jacob is still asleep at her back, so Evie closes her eyes again and drifts into a half sleep."

Later, when they're both awake, Jacob tells more about Clara and Jack. And they look for them, in the weeks and months that follow. Even manage to find Clara. But Jack's not with her—long gone, apparently, and there's a slightly unsteady expression on Clara's face when Jacob asks where.

"I don't want to talk about him," she says. "He's a messed up kid. I mean, we're all messed up—" she looks up at Jacob, and he nods like he understands. "But he's _too_ messed up."

When Jacob continues to press her about Jack, asking questions and bringing him up over and over again, Clara finally snaps. "He killed a woman, alright Jacob?" she says. "That little kid killed a grown woman in front of me, and he smiled while he did it. And then he ran, and I didn't want to follow." She won't say anything else after that, and Jacob stops asking.

And so Jack is lost, although Evie is left with the uneasy feeling that this is not the last they'll hear of Jack. A boy, a six year old child, who can and  _will_ kill an adult woman? That's... certainly someone to worry about.

-/-

(Present Day)

-/-

The young woman scrambling for her keys outside her apartment is not immediately recognizable as Clara O'Dea. Part of this is the hour—it must be nearly midnight, and a deep darkness creeps in on her as she gropes through her bag. It obscures her features and hides her shape. But there's something more to it than simple darkness. As a child, Clara had been constantly on edge, waiting for the next inevitable misfortune in her life. She is healthier now, happier. Not at this exact moment, fumbling in the dark and cursing her keys, but there's a brightness in her eyes that hadn't been there ten years ago.

She finds her keys at last and turns toward her door, but just then the streetlight closest to her goes out.

"Clara," someone says.

She freezes, keys falling from numb hands. She takes a shuddering breath and turns around, pressing her back against the wall. "Jack," she whispers. And indeed, his voice is unmistakable. Older, certainly, and somehow darker. But there is something in that voice that will not allow it to be forgotten.

"Long time no see," he says, and Clara squints through the darkness after his voice. But it's no good, the sound of it seems to echo from everywhere and nowhere at once. There's no way to tell where it's coming from.

"You left me," she says, voice shaking. "I didn't tell you to go, you don't have any reason to be angry with me—"

From somewhere in the darkness, Jack laughs. "I'm not here for you, Clara. You were decent, I remember that. You didn't turn me away, didn't make me think you cared and then take it all back."

Clara doesn't say anything. She barely looks like she can stand.

"You weren't Jacob Church."

"No," Clara says softly.

"But look at you!" Jack laughs again. " _Look at you_ , Clara O'Dea, productive member of society." The light over her head comes back and there's Clara, trembling and staring at the ground. "I've been watching you."

"Jack…"

"And the funny thing is, I found you on _accident._ Even freaks like me need our caffeine, you know? My usual coffee shop was busy so I decided to walk into yours. Just… sheer coincidence."

Clara is silent, nervously fingering the uniform she's still wearing. A local coffee shop, nothing remarkable. But her bag has the name of a fairly selective school printed on it, and Clara has the distinctive, sleepless look of someone trying to finish her studies and work at the same time. She is  _going_ places, which makes her current helpless, trembling fear all the more sharply menacing. After a moment, Jack gives a loud, aggravated sigh. " _No_ , Clara!" he says. "I'm not going to carry this conversation by myself, you have to contribute too."

And just like that he's there, in the light, pressing up close to Clara with a knife to her neck. Jack is in his late teens, practically a man, stocky where he had once tended toward pudgy. He's spotty all over from what looks like a particularly bad case of teenaged acne--he has enough pimples scattered across his forehead to draw constellations. The jagged scar on his face he's had since childhood looks even worse now, and his eyes are hard with a curious fire in them that makes him look not entirely sane.

"Jack," Clara whimpers. She puts one hand on the arm pressed against her neck, an apparently instinctual motion. Jack lets her put her hand there, but doesn't move away when she pushes against him. His knife glints in the reflected light overhead. Clara gives up fighting, not that she has been trying very hard. Fear seems to have mostly paralyzed her. "What do you want?" she asks.

"Let's call it a trip down memory lane," Jack says. "We used to live down the hall from each other. Now..." he smiles, all teeth. "It's like you never call."

"You ran," Clara says.

"You could have followed," Jack says. "There I was, a poor defenseless six year old on the streets of London. Why didn't you follow, Clara?"

Again, silence. Jack tightens the knife against Clara's neck, and she gasps in pain or fear or both. "Because—"

"The truth now, Clara," Jack says. "The truth!"

She shuts her eyes and makes a visible effort not to shake. "Because you weren't _defenseless._  You'd just killed a woman," she says. "And you were six years old, and I was terrified of what you might do next."

Jack grunts in satisfaction and steps back—the knife disappears somewhere into his clothes. "I still remember that day," he says. "Like it was yesterday. We'd just seen Roth kill the others we were with."

Clara nods. Obviously, she remembers it as well as Jack. Although her memories seem less fond.

"They weren't as good at hiding as we were," Jack says. "He found them. Do you remember how they screamed?"

"Every day," Clara says.

"I wanted to make someone else hurt like that," Jack says. His tone is calm, almost contemplative, like he's talking about something that happened once to somebody else. "And so I did. The first person we found after Roth left." He smirks at Clara, at the look at her face. "You have something you want to say, don't you?"

Clara's hands are in fists at her sides, and even with the fear she looks suddenly angry. "How could you?" she asks. "How—you were a child, Jack, just a kid! She'd never done anything to you, how could you kill her?"

"Easy," Jack says. "Roth left his knife, so I had a weapon and she didn't. And no one expects a kid to try and slice them open."

"That's not what I meant," Clara says. "I mean… who looks at a man slicing their friends open, and thinks 'hey, I want to do that too?' Who _does_ that, Jack?"

"Me," Jack says, a smile stretching its way across his face as Clara shudders. He drops his voice to a whisper. "And you know what? She wasn't the last. Killing is a kind of art, it's something you get better at with practice. And I have had… quite a lot of practice. I like to think of myself as a kind of artist, and the men and women of London as my canvas."

"And now you're here to do the same to me," she says dully. "Cut me open."

"No," Jack says. "I told you already, I'm not here for you."

"Then what _are_ you here for?" she asks. "Just to scare me?"

"It's a nice bonus," Jack says. "I _do_ enjoy the fear. But no—I'm here for Jacob."

"I'm not hiding him in my apartment," Clara says. "He's not here."

"Of course not," Jack says. "I'm not an idiot. But you're in contact with him. You know where he is."

"Yes," Clara admits.

"Tell me where I can find him," Jack says. "So long as you're honest, you get to live. I don't even care what you do after that. Call the police if you want, they won't be able to catch me. They've been trying for years. Fuck, you can call Jacob." He grins, sharp and dangerous and hungry. "Tell him I'm coming, Clara. I want him to know. I want him to feel the same fear that you feel right now."

"I'm _not_ afraid," Clara insists. "And I won't tell you anything you want to know."

"I'll find him regardless," Jack says. He pauses, putting his mouth right up against her ear. For a moment he just rests there, breathing softly against the side of her head. Then he says, "I'm sure Jacob's online somewhere. But this method seems like the most fun." He puts a hand on Clara's stomach, and another on her back when she tries to jerk away. "And you are scared, Clara. Do you feel that, in your stomach? Like ice pouring through your veins, freezing you from the inside. _That's_ fear. But there is no ice in there, and I should know." His hand on her stomach presses tighter. "I've cut open women just like you, sliced open their stomachs and pulled out what's inside. There's something fascinating about the uterus of a dead woman, you know. Something that's supposed to give life, instead taken as a trophy of a death." He leans forward a bit farther, nibbles at her ear. And that's it--that's the moment Clara breaks.

A thin stream of urine runs down Clara's leg, pooling in the street beneath her. A moment later she falls, slumping sideways against the wall and curling into herself. Jack lets her go, but leans down after her. "Are you afraid, Clara?" he asks.

"Y—yes." For the first time, there are tears in her eyes.

Jack smiles. Not the triumphant smile of someone that has achieved a goal, but a slow, languid smile that seems to say Clara's fear is its own reward. He revels in it for a moment, soaking it in the way anyone else might pause to enjoy the feel of the sun at the end of a long winter. Then he crouches down beside her. "Tell me where Jacob is," he says.

And so Clara does. She starts with an address, and then when Jack continues to press she spills everything. She tells him Jacob's habits, his hobbies, where he's most likely to be alone and when he'll be with others. She tells him about the people he's close to, and about how he or they might fight back if Jacob is in danger. In the end, Jack leaves her curled up and sobbing in a puddle of her own piss, and vanishes again into the darkness.


	8. Chapter 8

"Evie!"

No. No, no—absolutely not. Not this early in the morning.

" _Evie!_ "

Henry stirs against her, just barely awake and clearly not happy about it. "Your brother's here," he mumbles.

"Eeeeeevieee…."

It's been twelve years since Jacob came home, twelve years since they started really getting to know one another. Things haven't always been easy between them, but they're _better_ together. Every moment Evie spends with Jacob makes the two decades spent searching for him absolutely worth it.

"Evie! Evie!"

Even moments like this one. "I should go see what he wants," Evie says, shifting out of Henry's arms. Downstairs, Jacob's shouting has woken Nadia as well, and her crying joins the general noise of the house. Henry groans and sits up, following Evie.

"I'll go check on the other baby, then," he says, and Evie laughs at his longsuffering expression. Poor, dear Henry…

Downstairs, she finds Jacob rooting through one of the kitchen cabinets. "Evie!" he calls when he sees her, and there's so much enthusiasm in his voice and expression that it's almost impossible to be angry with him. Almost.

"What are you doing here?" Evie demands. "Jacob! Do you know what time it is?"

"No."

Of course he doesn't.

"What time is it?"

"What?" Evie looks at Jacob blankly as he grins at her. She has no idea what time it is either, just that it's too early for him to be here, standing in her kitchen and shouting the whole house awake. "Why are you here?" she asks instead.

"Think I left my keys here last night," Jacob says, and goes back to searching.

"Where do you need to go so early?" Evie asks, trailing after him. "You're dressed like—" And then she stops. Jacob glances back, guilt plain on his face, then looks quickly away. He looks for all the world like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. " _Jacob_ ," Evie says. "Why are you dressed like you're going on a date?"

"I'm not going on a date," Jacob says.

"I know," Evie says. She wishes he was, but Jacob hasn't so much as looked at a man or woman in the twelve years since he's come home. "You're going to see him, aren't you?"

Jacob doesn't answer, so Evie puts her hand on his shoulder and turns him around to face her. He stares at her in gloomy silence for a long moment, then nods. "Yes," he says. "I'm going to see him."

"Jacob!" she throws her arms up and steps back. "Jacob, the last time you went you _promised_ me it was the last time."

"I know, I know." He fidgets under her glare, nervous and unhappy. "And I meant it, Evie, I really did. I said goodbye and everything, it's just… I wasn't ready, I guess."

"You'll never be ready," Evie says. "Not if you let yourself keep going back there to see him."

Jacob snorts and turns away. "Roth's dead, Evie. I should know, I killed him. He's dead and nothing he can do can hurt me anymore. If I want to go see his grave, I can."

In any other circumstances, she'd have agreed. But it's been twelve years, and Evie knows by now that Jacob doesn't go to Roth's grave to remember him, or even to mourn him. He goes because even now, even after all this time, Roth still has a hold on her brother.

"Have you thought about going to that therapist—"

"Thought about it, yea," Jacob says. "Figured I didn't need to go crying to some stranger about my problems."

"I don't think the crying's necessary," Evie says.

"Well, whatever." Jacob shrugs and won't meet her eyes. "I don't need your shrink. I'm perfectly fine, and I'm going to go visit the grave of someone very important to me. Just as soon as I can find my damn keys."

He's going to go no matter what she says. The only question now is whether Evie will support him or not. If she does, she'll be giving approval to the most dangerous and unhealthy part of her brother's psyche. If she doesn't, she might lose him. Evie stands on her toes to reach the top of the fridge, and pulls Jacob's keys off. "Here," she says. "Nadia found them in a plant last night."

"What were they doing _there_?" Jacob stares at his keys like he's just learned they've grown legs and gone running off on their own.

"I don't know," Evie says. "They're your keys."

Silence grows between them, and Evie stares hard at the wall just over Jacob's shoulder. She'd give anything to wipe everything Roth had left out of Jacob's mind, but that's not going to happen. "Come by for dinner after," she says. "I know how you get when you've been to see his grave." Morbid and miserable and as un-Jacob as it is possible to be. He'll need cheering up or else he'll wallow in it for days.

"I'll come," Jacob says. "I'll be back by six."

"Take care of yourself," she says.

"I will." He hugs her, and Evie hugs him back. She's still uncertain, she _hates_ Roth and everything he's done to Jacob.

"Compromise," she says. "Go see his grave, but we don't talk about him tonight. Alright? Not a word."

"Deal," Jacob says quietly. Normally when he's been to see Roth's grave, he'll refuse to talk about anything else for hours or days. Sometimes Evie feels like she knows Roth as well as Jacob himself does. She can close her eyes and picture him standing in front of her, picture exactly what he'd say and do. But it makes her skin crawl She's tired of Jacob's ghost haunting her, too.

Nadia comes running in, cheerful again despite the early morning wakeup. Henry's follows the toddler in, yawning hugely, and Evie gives him a thankful smile. He's always been able to make their daughter smile, no matter what else is going on. Nadia hugs Evie's legs and waves at Jacob, who has paused with his hand on the door. His expression as he looks at Nadia is wistful.

"You could still be a father, one day," she tells him. If he leaves Roth behind and finds love somewhere else, that's what she means.

But Jacob only gives her a crooked little smile. "Nah," he says. "Not me. I'd be a shit dad. Roth always said, I—"

Silence again, but this time it's cold. Henry glances at Evie, and she shakes her head. It's going to be one of _those_ days, that's all. They've been through dark times before, no doubt they'll go through them again.

"Bye, then," Jacob says.

"Bye," Evie says. She watches her brother go in silence, then turns to Nadia. "Come here, baby," she says, crouching down and reaching for her daughter. "I need a hug."

And Nadia has always loved hugs. She reaches her arms as far around Evie as she can, and for a minute Evie just hugs her back in silence. Then she looks up at Henry. "We should have another one," she says.

"What, just like that?" Henry asks. "I think between Nadia and your brother, we have enough on our hands."

"Jacob's what made me think of it," Evie says. "It's not good to be on your own. Look what happened to him."

"You turned out good," Henry says. He kneels next to her and Nadia, who pulls him enthusiastically into the hug pile. "You turned out great, in my opinion."

But Jacob didn't. Jacob is carrying so much baggage around…

"We'll talk about it later," Henry says. "When you're not so upset."

Evie nods, and forces a smile onto her face. "Alright," she agrees. "And I'll try not to worry about Jacob while he's visiting Roth."

"Of course you'll worry," Henry says, turning to kiss Evie on the forehead. "He's your brother."

"Fine," Evie says. "Then I'll try not to worry _too_ much."

It's Sunday, and they have nowhere to go and nothing to do. Evie makes breakfast while Henry turns on the radio loud and dances with Nadia, who shrieks with laughter as she wiggles and shakes. Evie finishes breakfast and turns off the stove, leaning against the kitchen counter to watch. With her husband and daughter in front of her like this, it's easy not to think about Jacob. Evie smiles.

Something buzzes from the top of the microwave, and Evie glances over—it's Jacob's phone, of course. It's possible that he might have left it here on purpose, so he wouldn't have any distractions while visiting Roth's grave. But it's more likely he's just forgotten it here. Again. Just like the keys. Evie ignores the call—it's not her place to answer Jacob's phone—but it just rings and rings, again and again.

Eventually she goes to get a better look, and sees Clara's name on the caller ID. And well, it's _Clara_ —she's Evie's friend as well, so Evie takes the phone upstairs to answer it. When the dance party downstairs is just a distant sound, she hits accept and puts the phone to his ear.

"Hey, Clara," she says. "It's Evie. Jacob forgot his phone here again, so—"

Clara's response is a garbled mess, sobs and fear, and it freezes Evie's smile on her face.

"Clara?"

"He's coming," Clara says, and then she says something else but again the words are inaudible.

"Who's coming?" Evie asks. Her first, irrational thought is _Roth_. He's dead, of course he is, but… there's something about him. Something about the way he's been like a shadow across their lives for so long, that makes Evie think he can't _really_ be dead. Some part of him is still alive and still hurting them.

" _Jack_ ," Clara says.

"Jack." Evie pauses, trying to think. Does she know a Jack? The only one she can think of is the kid Jacob was supposed to have killed almost a decade ago, but he's just—

Well, he's not just a kid anymore, is he? He'd been a kid twelve years ago, now he'd be… eighteen, nineteen?

And he'd killed a woman when he was six.

"Clara," she says, more urgently now. "Clara, where are you? Are you safe?"

"No," Clara says, then—"Probably. For now. He said he didn't want me."

"Who _does_ he want?" Evie asks. "What does he want them for? What's wrong?"

Clara doesn't answer, and Evie is not even sure she's listening. "Can I—can I come over? Is Jacob there? I don't want to be alone right now."

"Yes," Evie says at once. "Of course, Clara, come here. Or I can come get you, if that's better."

"Please," Clara says, and Evie has never, _never_ heard her like this. Clara is strong. She's one of the strongest people Evie knows, and the sobbing, terrified girl on the other end of the line is not the Clara Evie knows.

"I'll be right there," Evie says, already hurrying downstairs.

"Don't hang up?"

"I won't."

She tilts the phone away just long enough to give Henry a quick explanation, then grabs her things and hurries out of the house. Clara is worryingly silent as Evie drives toward her apartment, but every time Evie herself goes quiet, Clara pipes up with an anxious "Are you still there?"

So Evie takes up a running commentary of where she is, naming every street and landmark she passes, and the banality of that seems to calm Clara a little. When Evie finally pulls up in front of the younger woman's apartment, Clara _almost_ sounds normal.

She doesn't look normal, though. Evie gets out of the car and Clara runs to her, crying again. Evie takes in her red, swollen face and her rumpled clothes.

"Were you out here all night?" she asks, when Clara has pulled back a few inches.

"I couldn't…" Clara won't look at her. "I couldn't move. I wasn't thinking straight—I don't know."

"It's okay," Evie says, but Clara looks singularly unconvinced. "Come on." She jerks her head back toward the car. "I'll take you back home. Or—do you need anything from your apartment? I can go in for you if you don't want to."

"I'm fine," Clara says. "I just want to get out of here."

So they get back in the car and Evie turns around to go. They've been driving for a few minutes when Clara speaks up again. She speaks in a flat, emotionless tone, relating everything that had happened to her when Jack came to visit the night before.

Evie's stomach is churning when Clara finishes. "He wants Jacob?" she asks. "He—you're sure?"

"Definitely," Clara says. "It was—Jack blames him."

"For what?"

Clara stares out the window. "Everything, I guess."

Evie puts her foot down and drives faster. It's starting to rain, and it's probably stupid to drive this recklessly in bad weather, but this is important, this is for Jacob. Evie can't take Clara with her to look for Jacob, not the way Clara is now. So she has to get Clara home as quickly as possible (and anyway, Henry will be more a comfort to her than Evie ever could be—Henry is good at that kind of thing) and then go to the cemetery.

The cemetery. "You said you told Jack about the places Jacob likes to hang out," Evie says. "What places did you mention?"

"Your house," Clara says. "His house. All… all the places he meets with his Rooks. And Roth's grave, of course."

"Of course," Evie echoes.

"I'm sorry," Clara says. "I'm _sorry_ , Evie, I know I shouldn't have told him anything but he…"

"I know," Evie says. "I don't blame you. Jacob won't, either. Did you call the police?"

"No," Clara says. "Just you."

"Okay," Evie says. "Call Freddie as soon as I get you home, okay? Can you do that, Clara?"

"Yes."

"I need you to tell him exactly what happened. Everything. _Exactly_."

"I will. What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to find my stupid brother," Evie whispers, heart pounding in her chest. "I am going to find my stupid, immature, selfish brother—" She's thinking how long she spent looking for him, she's thinking how happy she'd been to get him back, she's thinking she can't stand to lose him again. "And I'm going to make sure nothing bad ever happens to him again."

-/-

It's a cold day, dark and rainy, unusually grim for this time of year. The cemetery is mostly deserted, apart from a small group of mourners clumped around a freshly dug grave. For a while, a eulogist drones on about the apparently endless virtues of the recently deceased, most of which come across as alarmingly cliché platitudes. When he finally finishes, the funeral wraps up quickly and the bereaved hurry back to the dry comfort of their cars.

The cemetery is empty after that, apart from the dead, and Jacob Frye. He sits on the damp ground, leaning comfortably against a tall but plain headstone in a secluded corner of the graveyard. A beautiful tree grows nearby, tall and strong, stretching its long branches over Jacob. Maybe on sunny days it would be nice, but at the moment it's doing absolutely nothing to shield him from the rain. The leaves catch the water for a few seconds or a minute, and then abruptly dump their load down on him. Jacob hardly seems to notice.

He seems lost in thought, staring at something only he can see. After a while, as if it's taken all this time just to find the word, Jacob says, "Hey." He shifts a little, turning toward the stone, shifting a little so the name carved on it is clearly visible.

MAXWELL ROTH

And that's it. No epitaph, not even a birth or death date. Just the name. Jacob stares for a while. Then he says, "It's hard."

Rain drips down on him.

"You've been dead… four times as long as I knew you. But sometimes I still wake up and I just miss you so much. You were everything to me, and _everything_ doesn't matter less just because it was a long time ago."

The stone stays silent, as stones tend to do.

"Evie thinks I'm crazy. She keeps telling me I should talk to someone about you, but I…" he frowns. "I don't want to share you with some stranger that's paid to tell me how mad I am. And I don't want to be _better_ if that means letting go of you." Jacob laughs a little, but there's no humor in it. "What I want to know is—if Henry died _today_ , and then I asked Evie when she's eighty, would she still miss him? Even fifty years on? Bet she would. So why does everyone expect me to let _you_ go?"

He sighs and shakes his head. "Never mind. I just wanted to talk to you about… about all that. Get it off my chest, I guess, because I can't tell anyone else what I'm feeling about you. But we can talk about other stuff now if you want." He pauses. "Yea. Course you do. You never liked depressing stuff like this. So let's see… what else is going on? Um… well, the Rooks are doing well. Still driving Freddie mental, but he's pretty much on our side now. He knows we can solve the problems he and the other police aren't allowed to touch." For a second, there's a touch of pride in Jacob's voice. "I think you'd like the Rooks, even if we're not fighting for something you'd agree with. But they're pretty good with the whole chaos thing when they need to me. You'd think that was fun.

"Nadia's getting pretty big," Jacob goes on. "It's kind of terrifying, actually. She's almost like an actual person now, and she used to be like this little blob thing. She—"

"Maybe I'll have to look her up when she's older."

Jacob jerks to attention, his whole body going stiff as he notices—apparently for the first time—that he is not alone. There is a man, not yet out of his teens, standing two or three feet in front of Jacob. The rain is beginning to ease up, and for a moment the sun peeks through the scraggly layer of clouds overhead. It shines down on the new arrival, casting a long shadow out in front of him toward Jacob, so that he and Roth's grave are the only things in shadow.

"Do I know you?" Jacob asks.

The teen keeps his hands stuffed into the pockets of his long coat, and sort of smiles at Jacob. It's a crooked smile, off center because of the long scar that puckers one cheek. "You should," he says. "You made me."

"I… what?"

"You don't remember me," the teen says, and although he makes every effort to keep his voice cold and mocking, there's a hint of hurt on his face. "Even Clara remembered. Very well, actually. I've never made someone so scared without hurting them first."

And then Jacob seems to get it. His eyes go wide and he jumps to his feet. "Jack," he says.

"So you do remember."

"I remember a little boy," Jacob says.

"And I remember the man that drove me away."

"That was—no, Jack, you don't understand—"

Jack pulls one hand out of his coat and there's a gun in it. There's no time at all for Jacob to react, no time even to register the fresh threat. Jack fires once, twice—the sound is like thunder in the empty graveyard but there is no one else around to hear. His first shot misses, hitting Roth's headstone, but the second hits its target exactly. Jacob crumples back to the ground, stretched across Roth's grave. There's blood coming from somewhere, quite a lot of it, but the ground is wet and the rain's still coming down. Jacob's blood mixes with the mud and water on the ground, and in the soupy mess it is impossible to tell if he's been hurt somewhere lethal or just somewhere painful.

His blood pours from him, soaking into the grass that's grown over Roth's grave, and Jack tosses the pistol carelessly aside. It takes him four steps to reach Jacob and for a moment he just stands there, looking down at the older man. Then he pulls his other hand out of his pocket to reveal a thick wad of almost-clean bandages. He crouches down at Jacob's side, obscuring him, and starts to carefully wrap his wound.

Jacob doesn't move. His eyes are open just a crack, but his face is pale and the only sound he makes is a feeble groaning noise. When Jack finishes wrapping the wound, he hauls Jacob up and begins to drag him away. Jack is strong, but Jacob is a heavy burden and Jack seems to bend a little under the weight. Slowly, but inexorably, he moves away from Roth's headstone.

For a long time afterward, there is nothing but silence. The rain falls for a while, and then eventually slows and stops. The last of Jacob's blood soaks into the thirsty ground, and the only sign left of the attack that has taken place here is the fresh bullet hull on Roth's stone.

Finally, _finally_ , Evie comes. She comes charging up the path toward the grave, and then stops short abruptly. She looks at the headstone like it's something dangerous, then bites her lip and looks around. "Jacob," she whispers. "Jacob, where _are_ you?"

Cautiously, almost warily, she edges closer to the grave. Crouches down next to it. Runs her fingers over the bullet hole. For a second she bows her head in what looks like grief, or horror, or just overwhelming weariness. Then she stands up and backs away. She pulls out her phone and holds it to her ear with one hand, running the other through her hair until it's an absolute mess.

"Henry," she says when her call goes through. "Henry, I'm at Roth's grave. Jacob's not here."

A short pause.

"No, I don't know where he is. But there's a bullet in the headstone. Jack might have beat me here, and if he has Jacob, I don't know…" she pauses, chokes on a sob. "I just don't know."

A longer pause. Whatever Henry's saying on the other end of the line, Evie's clearly taking some strength from it. She forces her breathing into a steady pattern, and nods once or twice.

"I'm going to find him," she says. "I did it once, I can do it again. I know I can. Henry…" She takes a breath, then another. "I'll be home as soon as I can. I love you. Take care of Clara. And tell Nadia… tell her I love her, too."

The ghost of a smile flickers across her face at whatever Henry says to this. "No," Evie says. "No—I'm not planning to die, I didn't mean to sound so grim. I just miss the two of you. But I need to go to London. That's where Jacob took Jack, and if Jack has him now… I suppose it's as good a place to start as any."

She leans back against the tree next to Roth's grave, and for a moment she visibly allows herself to be weak. "Goodbye," she says, and hangs up on Henry. She nods to herself and pushes back, away from the tree.

Evie is about to leave when she glances again at Roth's grave. She scowls at it. "This is _your_ fault," she tells the silent stone. "You broke my brother. You created Jack, and how many more monsters like him? You—"

She shakes her head and walks away, fresh energy in her step.

"Fuck you, Roth."


	9. Chapter 9

Evie is in no fit state to drive and she knows it. She is shaking with anger, she can't stop thinking about Jacob. Jacob and Jack, and what Jack is planning to do to her brother. This is as bad as—no, it's worse than it had been before they met in person, it's worse because this time Evie knows for sure that Jacob is in danger. There is a real and present danger to Jacob's wellbeing, and…

She has to protect him, that's all there is to it. That's… Jacob…

There's a part of Evie's mind that's fragmenting under the pressure. Drifting away into pieces because her brother is in danger and now that she knows him, she can't lose him again. She can't let things go back to how they used to be, it would _hurt_ too much. Losing Jacob would… it's not—

No, no, _no_.

But there's another part of her mind that has gone cold and analytical. It's this part of her mind that determines that _no_ , she really shouldn't be driving, and comes up with an alternate plan to get to London.

Evie isn't really sure what exactly that plan is. The part of her that's capable of handling this right now is just large enough to keep her moving toward London, it's not enough to prevent a kind of numb shock from settling over her shoulders like a thick blanket. It blocks out everything, even memory, and the next thing Evie knows she's in London.

Freddie, Evie thinks vaguely. That's her best bet right now. Clara had said Jack mentioned the police, said something about them not being able to find him. Which means they're looking, and… well, apparently they're not looking in the right places but at least it's somewhere to start. Freddie, she'll go talk to Freddie, and then…

She doesn't have a plan, Evie realizes numbly. When she was looking for Jacob the first time, Evie had always had a plan. Somewhere new to look, some new lead to follow. Now—well, if Freddie doesn't give her an idea of where to go next, Evie has no idea what she'll do. But she'll kick down every door in London, if it comes to that, and if Jacob's not in London she'll search the entire country, all of Europe—there's nowhere on this planet that Jack can take Jacob where Evie won't find him eventually.

She goes to see Freddie. He's come a long way from the nameless nobody he used to be when Evie first met him, more than two decades ago now. He's good at his job, he's excellent, really, and clearly his superiors have recognized that. Freddie's gotten promotion after promotion, and when Evie goes to see him she's kept waiting for half an hour before Freddie finally comes out to meet her.

"Evie," he says. "You—" He blinks, takes a second look at her. "You look awful."

She looks at him, too. He's haggard and tired, with bags under his eyes and more gray in his hair than Evie has ever seen there before. "So do you."

"Well, I've been busy," Freddie says vaguely. "Haven't I?"

"Have you?"

Freddie gives her an exasperated, sideways look even as he leads her away from the waiting area toward what looks like a particularly large office. "The murders," he says, like Evie should have known this already.

"I haven't been in London for a while," Evie says. "I'm a bit behind on the news."

"Thought everyone would have heard by now," Freddie says. He sounds glum, and as they walk into his office, Evie sees why.

Two of Freddie's walls are plain. Blank, ordinary. They wouldn't look out of place in any office in the city, apart from being a bit larger and nicer than most. The third is lined with large windows, which give Evie a good view of a cloudy gray sky and the office building next door. The fourth wall, however… that's the one that draws her attention immediately, and even through the hazy numbness that's been chewing at her since Jack took Jacob, it's like a punch to the gut.

There are pictures there, and these draw her attention first. Well, they'd draw anyone's attention. Five pictures. They were taken in different places, some on the street, others in private bedrooms, one in what looks like a hotel. But all of them show young women, ripped apart with a kind of intense barbarism.

"Not nice, is it?" Freddie asks, in a kind of hopeless understatement.

"Not at all," Evie says. She's not even thinking about Jacob, right at this second, she's reeling from the shock of learning that there are human beings in the world that are capable of cruelty like this. It's like… it's like being ten and learning Santa isn't real, it's a realization that the rules she thought the world worked by were never rules at all, that life is capable of less joy than she has always imagined, and greater horror.

"Been chasing this guy for months," Freddie says. "No leads. Nothing but the breadcrumbs he drops for us himself."

"Breadcrumbs…? Ah." She's drifted close enough to the wall to take in some of the other papers hung up there, the maps and statements and the _letters_. Evie stops in front of the closest one to read it.

"Don't—"

Freddie is at her side in a second, pulling her forcibly away from the letter. She blinks at him. "Freddie? What's wrong?"

"Just don't read it," he says, and because he looks so miserable, Evie nods and agrees. Besides, she's caught the general gist of it. The letter's written in large, clear block letters. Even in her quick glance, Evie had caught the writer's taunting, laughing tone, the casual threats, the clear enjoyment.

… _kept her blood in a bottle to write this with…_

… _still can't catch me, I laughed and laughed…_

… _we're really having fun now, aren't we?_

Evie doesn't want to read more. "Is that from the killer?" she asks.

"Jack," Freddie says. "Yea."

Her insides are suddenly ice, and Evie feels a horrible press of guilt when she realizes she'd actually forgotten Jacob's predicament for an entire minute, staring at that wall. "Jack," she echoes.

"Or the Ripper, if you like," Freddie says. "It's what the press have taken to calling him."

"Jack…"

"Evie?" Freddie frowns and moves his hand from Evie's arm to her back, guiding her into a chair. "Evie, what's wrong."

"Someone took my brother," Evie says. "Someone he used to know. This—this madman called Jack."

"It can't be the same one," Freddie says, with absolutely no conviction. "I mean, the chances of that would be… they'd…" He shakes his head, clearly more disturbed than he's willing to let on. "No."

"How many madmen called Jack do you think there are in this city?" Evie demands. "Freddie, you have to admit this might be a lead."

But Freddie doesn't look like he's even considering this. "No," he says, shaking his head. "Evie, this Jack only ever attacks women. And he doesn't kidnap them, he finds them on the street or in their homes. You and your brother live all the way out in Crawley. There's no reason for Jack to travel all the way down there, specifically target Jacob—changing his victimology and method in the process—and bring him back here."

"They have a history," Evie says. "That explains why he'd target Jacob specifically."

"But this Jack has _never_ shown an interest in men," Freddie says.

"The one that took my brother started killing women when he was six years old," Evie says. "He threatened a friend of mine last night by talking about the uteruses he's pulled out of other women.

Freddie pauses. "Alright," he says. "Maybe you have a point."

"Tell me everything you know about this Ripper," Evie says. "Please, Freddie? Even if he's not the same man, I don't have any other leads to follow at the moment. I have to do something."

"And what if your interest in him makes _him_ interested in _you_?" Freddie asks. "I can't allow you to put yourself in danger—"

"Freddie."

She doesn't say anything else, but the quick rebuke is all Evie needs to render Freddie completely still and silent. They watch one another warily for a moment, then Freddie says, "I would really hate to lose you to someone like this monster, Evie. You've been a good friend to me for many years, now."

"But I would hate to lose my brother," Evie says. "I have to do this."

"What of your husband?" Freddie asks. "And your daughter?"

Evie hesitates. She wants, more than anything, to tell Freddie that she plans to chase Jack as far as the monster can run, back to whatever hole he's hidden Jacob in. But that's not a fair question. She loves Jacob, and she loves Nadia. It's a horrible choice, to risk everything, to risk depriving Henry of a wife and Nadia of a mother on the chance that this might be the Jack that has taken Jacob.

"Leave this to us," Freddie says. Maybe he senses Evie's indecision, because his words are calm and soothing, like a man trying to talk down a wild animal. "I've been tracking Jack for months now, it's only a matter of time until he's found."

If his words _had_ been meant to soothe her, they fail miserably. Evie cannot afford to wait. Freddie says _just a matter of time_ like Jacob still has all the time in the world, but he doesn't. Jack could kill him tomorrow, in an hour, he could be killing him now. Evie won't let him down. "Tell me what you know, Freddie," she says. "Tell me everything."

"Damnit, Evie," Freddie says, but he doesn't sound as upset as Evie would have expected. Maybe he needs her help more than he's willing to admit. He sits down at his desk, reaching for a thick file as he gestures for her to join him. "Sometimes I wonder if you're even human, you write off the people in your life so easily."

"Not Jacob," Evie says, pulling out the indicated chair.

"No," Freddie says. "But everyone and everything else."

Evie scowls and pulls the file out of Freddie's hands to get a better look. "Let's talk about Jack," she says. "Not me."

And for the next several hours, that's exactly what they do. Freddie has been on the Ripper case since the first woman was found torn open, and he has an eye for detail and a talent for summary that Evie really appreciates. He starts by telling her just the facts, and only when his story has caught up to the present day does he offer his own opinions. Evie counters with a few of her own. The conversation proceeds, cool and distant, and then Evie stands with a nod of thanks and leaves Freddie's office.

"Evie," Freddie calls after her. "Be careful. London isn't the same now as it was twenty years ago when you were here looking for Jacob."

"I will be careful," Evie says. "But I'm not planning to die, or anything. If that's what you're worried about."

"Good," Freddie says. " _Don't_. And Evie, don't… lose yourself, trying to find your brother. Two decades ago, finding him was the only thing that mattered in your life. Now there's so much more for you to lose."

Evie nods, but cannot bring herself to respond. This isn't going to be like last time. Jacob isn't going to be missing for years, she's going to find him quickly. There's Jack to worry about this time, and Evie has a terrible, twisting feeling that Jack isn't going to _let_ her take that long to get to her brother. He might not live long enough for her to search for years. Whatever their personal history is, Evie is sure Jack had not taken Jacob with good intentions.

He's going to kill him, eventually. The only question is how long he is planning to wait, and how much he will hurt Jacob in the meantime. Probably a lot. Evie doesn't think she's ever going to forget those pictures of Jack's earlier victims.

The victims—thinking of them reminds Evie that they should be her first lead here. They'd all been killed in the same area, in Whitechapel, so that's where Evie's going to start looking. There's no guarantee Jack will still be there, of course, but it's possible he'd chosen to strike there because that's where he's comfortable. Maybe someone will have heard of him, maybe they'll even know him. Someone that will tear women apart for fun or kidnap a grown man isn't likely to come across as normal in his everyday life. And Evie knows what Jack looks like, thanks to Clara. That will help. Someone will know him, they have to…

Somehow, none of this reassures Evie. She's thinking about how many people live in London. And Jack is just one man, and Evie is just one woman. She can't possibly talk to everyone, she can't get lucky and just… just hope that she'll stumble on someone that happens to know Jack.

Which sucks, because she can't think of anything else to try.

It turns out that Evie is far from the first person to come around asking questions about the Ripper. His murders are brutal, and all sorts of people have shown an interest. The police, obviously, but also reporters, tourists. _Tourists_. While Evie is asking her questions of a man that lives near one of the murder scenes, a woman nearby pipes up with an American accent, claiming she wants to know everything about the Ripper too. Just morbid curiosity, she says with a guilty smile, and Evie wants to hit her. Jacob is in danger, and here are these people treating Jack's murders like they're a game.

But honestly, Evie's feeling far too tired to hit anyone. Even slightly bloodthirsty tourists that probably deserve it. Instead, as night falls in earnest and people start to disappear off the streets, Evie feels exhaustion starting to tug on her. She'll need to find somewhere to stay while she's in the city. It's not like there's anyone else she can talk to at this time of night, and anyway this isn't her first time looking for Jacob. Evie knows from experience that she'll do better when she's calm and well rested. If she can't manage calm, at least she can try to get some sleep tonight.

But where to stay? Freddie's right, the city _has_ changed while Evie's been gone. Henry had sold his shop years ago, just after they married, and since then Evie has only rarely had occasion to come to London. Most of the contacts she'd had twelve years ago are gone, moved away or dead or arrested. But…

Well, Jacob still comes to London regularly. He comes here to meet with his Rooks. And Evie knows he has a place here, a room he'll crash in sometimes when his business goes late and he doesn't feel like leaving London. Evie even has a key. She has a copy of all of Jacob's keys, because Jacob is Jacob and he keeps losing his.

Evie does a very good job of trying to convince herself that she's only going there because it's convenient. But the truth is it's Jacob's place, and Evie very much wants to feel close to him right now.

She's never been to Jacob's place in London, but she has the address and finds it easily enough. Her key fits the lock easily enough, and for a moment after she steps inside, Evie just stands against the door, breathing in the smell. It's silly, maybe, and probably just her imagination, because it's really not like Jacob's here all that much. But the place seems to smell a little like him.

Evie forces herself to move again. There's a light switch on the wall next to her, and she flips it to flood the room with light. The place really is small, just one room with a tiny bathroom in the corner. One wall has a minifridge and microwave on a low table, but the rest of the room is just a general mess of things Jacob has left behind. Evie wanders slowly through her brother's space, poking through his things. She's not looking for clues, she doesn't expect to find anything here. She just wants to feel close to him, and it's easy here. The room is in such a state that it almost looks like Jacob has just dashed out for a moment, and he'll be back any second now.

She pauses over certain items. There's a magnet on the fridge holding up a crayon drawing Nadia had given Jacob last summer. In the bathroom, Evie finds a book she'd loaned to Jacob ages ago—he's on page thirty.

Behind the mattress, shoved up against the wall, she finds a picture of Jacob and Roth together.

After that, Evie doesn't feel much like poking around anymore. She doesn't bother looking in the fridge (it's not like she really wants to know what's in there) and just falls onto his mattress instead. She's not expecting much, but it's surprisingly comfortable. When Evie reaches down to pull Jacob's blankets over her shoulders, she falls asleep in seconds.

-/-

In another part of London, Jacob is screaming.

He is bound, hand and foot, zip ties around his wrists and ankles, ropes tethering him to the wall. His shirt's gone, and the bandages over his bullet wound are already starting to turn red. Wherever he is, it's dark. Underground somewhere, maybe—there's something about the place that just seems musty and old. There's dirt everywhere, and the only light comes from a bare bulb in the ceiling.

Jack crouches over Jacob, and even in the dim light his blade flashes silver and bright as he presses it against Jacob's side. He moves with deliberate slowness, keeping his cut shallow so he can watch the blood well up, drop by drop. There are other long, shallow cuts across Jacob's chest and sides, many of which are still slowly bleeding.

"I know it hurts," Jack says, barely audible under Jacob's ongoing screams. "I practiced. To make sure it would hurt you as much as you hurt me."

"You think the knife— _ah!_ —you think it's the knife that hurts?" Jacob demands.

"Yes," Jack says without taking his eyes from his work.

"It's the bullet wound that hurts," Jacob says. "You— _eurgh!—_ you lunatic."

"I'd be careful, if I were you," Jack says, pressing the knife a little deeper. Jacob gives a fresh gasp of pain. "Words like that are what got you into trouble in the first place."

"What are you _talking_ about?" Jacob says. "Jack, Jack—talk to me, please. I understand that you're angry but I don't know why."

"You don't know why?" Jack repeats. "You—" he tosses the knife aside and stands, running his bloody hands through his hair. "After what you did, you don't—you don't even _remember_?"

"Look, Jack…" Jacob's breathing is ragged, but he makes an effort to compose himself. "I did a lot of things to hurt you, I know that. But I never meant it."

"Great," Jack says. He glares at the wall instead of at Jacob. "You killed me that day, and you don't even remember."

"Come _on_ , Jack!" Jacob says. "Don't be so dramatic, don't—"

"I'm not being dramatic!" Jack yells. He spins back around to look at Jacob, hands balled into fists at his side, spit flying. Looking at him now, there's very little similarity between him and the Jack that had so thoroughly terrified Clara outside her apartment. He is emotional, he is _young_. Beyond the anger, there is something in his face that looks like he's pleading with Jacob. "Don't treat me like a kid, I'm _not_ a kid! Do you know how many people I've killed? More than you, probably!"

"That's… not something to be proud of, Jack."

"You used to think it was," Jack spits at him. "Do you remember, Jacob? We killed that girl together, the one in that shop, you let me burn it down myself. _Together_ , Jacob, and you said—" something in him slips, and he fights to build it back up. "You said… I did good."

The seconds tick by. Jack stares at the ground by Jacob's feet, visibly trying to force himself to keep his composure. Jacob's face is unreadable, there's too much pain there from his various injuries, and it blocks everything else out. Finally, he speaks. "I was a different person then, Jack. I was messed up, I was confused, I was… I was the bad guy, Jack. The woman we almost burned? She's my sister. I didn't know it at the time, but she was trying everything she could to get through to me and I tried to kill her."

"You have a _sister_?" Jack's expression flashes from shock to anger to something calculating that should have worried Jacob. But he doesn't seem to be paying attention, lost in thoughts of Evie.

Jacob smiles, a genuinely happy expression that looks out of place in this room. "Yea," he says. "Evie. She's my twin sister, and she's amazing. She's the best thing that ever happened to me."

"Yea?" Jack says. "You were the best thing that ever happened to _me_ , and then you broke that. You were the only good thing that had happened in my whole shitty life since my parents died, and then you turned that all around, you said you didn't care—"

"I was trying to protect you!"

"How was that protecting me?"

"Roth wanted me to kill you," Jacob says. "I needed you to leave, and I thought making you hate me was the only way to get you to leave. I was trying to keep you _safe_."

Jack splutters, sounds that aren't words falling from his mouth. "Fuck you!" he manages at last.

"You were a kid, Jack," Jacob says. "Just a messed up kid, and I know I was messed up too, but I would never have hurt you."

"You did."

"Okay, yes, I get that now," Jacob snaps. "But don't you get it, Jack? Your life was in danger, I was just trying to save your life!"

Jack has been angry, upset, pacing back and forth, full of a restless energy he can't seem to contain throughout this entire conversation. Now he freezes, face going blank as he stares at Jacob. He doesn't say anything, but he doesn't have to. His expression says it all, says that it doesn't matter that Jacob saved his life because his life holds no value for him at all.

Jacob can't hold his gaze long, and his eyes fall to the ground. Jack goes for his knife, and returns to his work.

"Why?" Jacob asks. "Why now?"

"Got tired of waiting," Jack says. The knife flashes, cuts a little deeper. Jacob winces.

"And what's the big plan?" Jacob asks. "Are you going to kill me? Is that what you're working up to?"

"Don't know," Jack says. "I haven't made up my mind yet."

"But you're thinking about it."

Jack nods slowly. The knife freezes, an inch or so away from Jacob's skin. "I've been thinking about it for twelve years," he says. "I can't stop thinking about it. At first I was angry, and I'm still angry, but not as much. I just—I can't get it out of my head, the things you said that day…" His hand, the one with the knife in it, starts to shake violently. Jacob watches it warily. "No, not even _what_ you said, it was _how_ you said it, it was—it was…"

"It was being told you weren't important," Jacob says. "It was being thrown away, _again_."

"See?" Jack says. "You do know what you did." He takes a deep breath, and his hand steadies as he returns to work. Jacob seems to sag within his bindings, head bowing. He is not screaming anymore, or arguing. He just sits there as Jack slices him apart, still and small, like he's been convinced he deserves it.


	10. Chapter 10

Evie wakes and for a moment doesn't know where she is. The light coming in through the window is all wrong, soft early morning light, that particular golden light that comes just before dawn, when it is neither night nor truly morning. Evie stretches on the bed, taking in the unfamiliar apartment and the smell and feel of the blankets wrapped around her. Jacob, they make her think of Jacob—and then she remembers that of course they do, she's at his place.

"Are you awake yet?"

Evie sits bolt upright in bed, eyes scanning the room, but she's just barely caught a glimpse of the boy sitting at the end of the bed before he's surged forward, he's on top of her—Evie shouts (angry, _not_ afraid), but she hadn't been expecting this and the boy is fast and strong. He pins her down and grabs her arm—she feels a pinch and then nothing, but when the boy scrambles away he is grinning, waving an empty syringe at her.

"I've been saving this," he says. Evie tries to stand, to go after him, but her legs shake so badly she can barely move. Her vision blurs a little around the edge, and her heart speeds up.

"Saving what?" Evie asks.

"Oh, I dunno what it is," the boy says. "Bought it off this guy I found on the internet, he swore up and down it's the best weapon you could ever have."

"It's poison?" Evie asks. "You killed me?"

"Nah," the boy says. "You're Jacob's sister, aren't you? Evie?"

"And you're Jack," she says.

His grin is almost proud. "They also call me Ripper. But that's not the point. The _point_ is, Jacob cares about you." He pulls something out of his pocket, a phone. He fiddles with it a few minutes, then sets it up on a table across the room from Evie, camera facing her.

"How did you find me?" Evie asks.

"What?" For a second, Jack's face slips into a very ordinary confusion. "Well I mean—it wasn't exactly hard, was it? This is Jacob's place. He was living here when I knew him. I mean, he was here whenever he wasn't with Roth."

Roth. Always, _always_ Roth.

"So... I guess that guy on the internet was wrong, the drugs aren't the weapon…" he takes a step back and crouches down, checking the view. He nods, apparently satisfied. " _You're_ the weapon, and you're going to hurt Jacob."

"Never," Evie says, but there's not as much force behind the words as she wants. Something's wrong in her head, she doesn't feel quite right…

"You are," Jack says, perfectly cheerful. "He's going to watch his sister go insane." He gestures to the phone, and Evie feels a second of excitement at the thought of Jacob on the other end. But the excitement won't stick, it fades as something bigger crowds it out. Fear. Evie is suddenly terrified, and she doesn't know _why_. True, she's in the same room as a boy (but no, no boy would do something like this, he's a man, a monster) who has kidnapped her brother, terrified her friend, and admitted to murdering five women. But she shouldn't feel this, her pulse racing, heart beating like mad, hands sweating.

"I'm not insane," Evie says.

"I didn't get around to telling you what this does, did I?" Jack asks, holding the syringe up to the light.

"N—no." She can't get her breathing right, there's something wrapped around her chest like an iron band, squeezing tight.

"It's fear," Jack says. "Visions, hallucinations, whatever terrifies you, you're about to see it. More than see it, if my guy's product description is right." He taps the side of his head, grinning a crooked, sideways grin around the old scar on his cheek. "Gets inside your head, I guess, makes you feel things, think things… I dunno. You're about to find out, I guess."

Evie mumbles something. She shakes her head, trying to clear her vision as it starts swimming. The colors in the room blur and the last thing Evie hears before her vision goes dark is Jack, laughing and laughing and laughing, and then footsteps and a door slamming closed behind him.

She doesn't exactly pass out, but she's not exactly conscious, either. When she finally manages to drag her eyes open and prop herself up against the wall, the world is tilting on its axis, the lights hurt her eyes, and she feels like she's going to throw up. Her heart is still pounding and she can't breathe right, she might be about to hyperventilate. And there's someone in the room, someone that flickers in and out and Evie's thinking, she's thinking someone said something about hallucinations but memory isn't working right now and thoughts aren't that great either.

"I think we have something in common, love," the maybe-hallucination says, standing up. He swims in and out of focus for a minute before solidifying into something vaguely familiar. A man, older than her, gray haired with a mustache. She's seen him in pictures, but can't quite place here, not right now, not with everything off balance inside her.

"What do we have in common?" she asks. "Who _are_ you?"

"Don't you know me?" he asks. "I'm shocked. Shocked and disappointed, really. Hasn't Jacob ever mentioned me?"

"I don't—"

He makes a dramatic gesture almost like a bow. "Maxwell Roth." Something in Evie seizes up and the fear comes pouring down on her, a fresh tidal wave on top of everything she's already feeling. "A pleasure to meet you. And as for what we have in common, I believe _darling_ Jacob's tried to kill us both. The only difference being, he succeeded with me."

"Shut up," Evie snaps. "Shut up, don't call him that."

Roth smiles, and suddenly without moving he's on the bed next to her, on the bed where he had slept with her brother, and his hand is on her knee. Evie feels cold, like ice shooting through her veins. She whimpers, a high, thin noise that in any other circumstance she would have been ashamed of.

"I do love him, you know," he says. "And I don't know if I love him more than you do…" He gives a little shrug of the shoulders. "I think I do. But I know for certain that I loved him first."

"That's a lie," Evie says. "It's a _lie_ , I loved him since I was a little girl, ever since I knew he existed. Long before you knew him." But part of her is thinking that it's true, that she'll never be able to compete with Roth in Jacob's eyes, because this is exactly what she's always been afraid of.

"Alright then," Roth concedes. "Alright, maybe you did love him first. But _he_ loved _me_ before he ever heard about you. And I will never be out of his head, he will never be over me, he will never be as much your brother as he is my lover."

He is close now, so close that Evie should be able to feel his breath against her face. But she can't, he's not breathing—he's a dead man, but somehow Evie is still less afraid of the fact that he is _dead_ than his identity as _Maxwell Roth_.

"That's not true," Evie says.

Roth pulls away from her, and for a moment Evie feels relieved. But just for a moment. He's not touching her anymore, but he's still so close. Too close. "Let's think about that, darling," Roth says. He draws the last word out, like he knows how much it will hurt her. Darling, dear, love—those had been the words he used for Jacob, the ones Jacob had once admitted to Evie he misses hearing. Evie doesn't want to hear them now. She is not her brother, and she does not want to hear Roth's pet name's for Jacob used on her—

"Think about what?" she asks, and she means it to be strong, angry. It comes out as barely more than a whisper.

"Let's imagine another world," Roth says. "One where Jacob did his job, and succeeded in killing you. He might never have learned you were related, and he might never have had that crisis of conscience that brought him to the Alhambra to kill me. I would have lived. Do you really think that Jacob would have spent so much as a moment regretting what he did?"

"Yes—"

"No!" Roth says, and he shouts the word, he roars it at her. "He would have never given you a second thought! He would have walked away from you, he would have come back to _me!_ You took the man I love away from me, you took the man _he_ loves away from _him!"_

He is on top of her, so close he blocks out the whole rest of the world. She tries to say something but her whole brain has frozen in fear, her body is locked in place. Roth just keeps going. "Do you want to know how he felt?" he demands. "Do you want to know what you ruined?"

"I—"

It's just—it's so hard to _think_. It's like drowning, it's like fighting to get to the surface while water is just pouring down and down and down. Nothing seems real, not the room, not her body, not what she sees. Paradoxically, Roth seems to become more real, more _present_ , until he is the only thing that matters.

"Jacob, darling," Roth says, and his voice is kind for the first time. "It has been a very long time."

Evie wants to argue that she is not Jacob, but the fear in her chest is turning slowly to something else, something… deep and rich, undefinable but impossible to ignore. It's the drugs, Evie thinks desperately. It's whatever Jack had given her. What she's feeling is no more real than the fear.

But it feels real, and Evie cries with how real it feels. How important, how overwhelming. This is what Jacob has been trying to explain to her for twelve years, these are the feelings she's been telling him to ignore. She reaches for Roth, desperate, and he is kind. He takes her hand in his, and holds it tight. Evie is shaking, she wants him, she just wants to be near him, there is no room for any other thought in her head and Evie doesn't _want_ there to be. She doesn't want to think or feel anything, she just wants this.

Roth isn't really here. He's a figment of her imagination and a product of her fears, and Evie _knows_ that. It doesn't help. She presses herself up against him and cries. Evie thinks she must be saying things, promising him things, begging, but she doesn't know what they are, she's still not thinking straight.

She stays like that until the drugs wear off, but there is a horrible in between moment where Evie doesn't really know what's going on, where the feelings from the drugs linger but the hallucinations are gone. When she can't see Roth but she _needs_ him.

For the first time in twelve years, Evie understands why her brother hasn't been able to let go of him. If these are his feelings, if this is what's going on in his head, then it's no wonder, no wonder at all…

It takes a long time for the effects to fully wear off, but when they finally do Evie runs to the bathroom and throws up. Again and again, for at least half an hour she stays in the bathroom, sprawled against the toilet, heaving everything in her stomach into the toilet. She's shaking, she's horrified by what she's just seen and said and felt.

It was the drugs, she tells herself over and over.

But it doesn't matter.

When she's down to coughing up bile, Evie sags against the wall and pulls her phone out of her pocket. She wants to call Henry, she wants to hear his voice, hear Nadia's, but—no, no. Roth hadn't been real, but Evie isn't ready to explain what she'd felt to Henry. She needs to find the words, but there _aren't_ any. Not yet, anyway. Maybe, after she gets Jacob back, she'll be able to _think_. Later. She'll call him later. For now, she just needs a friend.

She dials Freddie with shaking fingers, and has to hold it to her head with both hands because just one isn't enough to keep from dropping it. When he picks up, Evie bursts into tears and for several long minutes she can't do anything but cry. Freddie finally manages to coax her location out of her, and then he stays on the phone while he comes to her. Evie keeps crying until it's too much, she has to stop or hyperventilate.

Freddie gets really worried then, when she goes quiet. He keeps asking her to say things, so Evie will mutter a word or two into the phone to prove she's still there.

"Evie," he says at last. "I'm here, I'm outside and I'm coming in, alright?"

She takes a breath, tries to speak.

"Evie, is that okay?"

"It's okay," she whispers, and a moment later she hears the door open and Freddie's footsteps coming toward her.

"Oh, Evie," he says, and that's how she knows she must look a fright. "Evie, what happened?"

"I don't…" she shakes her head. "Can you just sit here for a while? I just don't want to be alone."

Freddie nods and sits next to her on the floor. He puts his arm around her and Evie is so, so grateful for him. He's always been a friend, and that's exactly what she needs right now. Just to be held by a friend, and let his arm around her shoulder wipe away the phantom of Roth.

It takes a while, almost an hour, but finally Evie manages to tell Freddie everything. Jack tracking her down, the drugs he'd injected her with, the things she'd seen.

"I told you not to go after Jack," Freddie says. But the way he says it, it doesn't sound like an _I told you so_. It sounds like _I'm sorry._

"I'm not going to stop," Evie says. "He's still my brother. He's still Jacob. And if this is what Jacob is capable of, then I absolutely need to get Jacob away from him. As soon as possible. Or sooner. I just… don't know where to start."

Freddie sighs. "I was afraid you'd say that," he says.

"Sorry."

"Don't apologize," Freddie says. "I've never heard you apologize for anything, don't start now."

Evie chokes out a laugh. "Fine," she says. "I won't."

She knows she should be looking for Jacob now, she should be finding some new lead, tracking him down. But right now all she can do is sit here, on the floor of Jacob's bathroom, the smell of vomit still lingering in the air, taking what comfort she can from Freddie's hug.

Neither of them moves for quite a long time.

-/-

Jacob is quiet, apart from the quiet rasp of his labored breathing. Things have gotten worse for him, fast. He is covered in blood, in burns, in bruises. He is lying in his own filth, slumped against the wall and apparently without enough energy to sit up on his own. There's a gag in his mouth. One eye is swollen shut, but the other stares at a cell phone propped up in front of him, just out of reach.

The volume on the phone is turned all the way up, and it echoes against the walls of Jacob's prison. It's Evie's voice—crying out to nothing, her terrified response to the hallucinations Jack's drugs had inflicted on her. Jacob closes his good eye, shifts away from the phone as the footage continues.

Finally, the drugs wear off. Evie goes quiet, apart from the sound of retching, and then a while later Evie's phone conversation with Freddie. Jacob cracks his eye open again, and takes a deep breath (wincing) when Freddie arrives to comfort her.

Jack walks into the room, completely unnoticed by Jacob. He's still staring at the phone, even though Evie and Freddie are outside the range of the camera now. Jack walks up next to him and leans down to see what's going on. For a moment they're both silent, listening to Freddie trying to reassure Evie.

"Aw," Jack says. Jacob flinches away, so violently that his head hits the wall behind him with a crack. "That's… that's sweet, isn't it?"

Jacob makes a moaning noise around the gag that might be pain or might be an attempt to say something. Jack ignores him. "Kind of bummed I missed her freaking out," he says. "These drugs were supposed to make her crazy for _way_ longer than they did. I should see about getting a refund."

Jacob moans again, but Jack ignores him in favor of fiddling with his phone. When he's hung up and slipped the phone into his pocket, he looks down at Jacob and grins. "Or maybe I won't," he says. "I mean the whole point of freaking her out was to hurt you, and that seems to have worked."

He pulls the gag out of Jacob's mouth with two fingers, holding it at arm's length like it's something disgusting. Jacob chokes and coughs as the fabric is pulled out, then says, "That's my sister." His voice is rough, hoarse.

"I know," Jack says. "That was the point."

"You _hurt_ her," Jacob says.

"No," Jack complains. "No, Jacob, No! You're getting boring!" He stands and kicks half heartedly at Jacob's side. "Stop whining, stop—don't you have any anger left in you? Don't you have anything left for me to hurt?"

"Leave Evie alone," Jacob says. "Just leave her alone, leave her alone…"

Jack throws him a rude gesture but Jacob doesn't seem to see it. "Listen," Jack says. "You should be thanking me, really. I didn't actually _hurt_ Evie. I could have done a lot worse than that but I _didn't_. You're welcome, Jacob."

Jacob makes a pathetic spitting noise, and launches a thin glob of mucus in Jack's general direction. It gets about halfway to his shoes and splats onto the floor.

Jack makes a show of wrinkling his nose. "I could still hurt her, you know that? It was so easy to find her, it's almost funny. I can find her again. I can do to her what I'm doing to you."

"No!"

"Relax," Jack says. "I said could, not would. No—women, I like killing them faster. When I come for your sister, I'll kill her quickly." He smiles, a quick flash of a Cheshire grin. "It'll still hurt, don't get me wrong. She'll die screaming—maybe I'll burn her alive, the way we almost did when I was a kid. But I won't drag it out for her like th—"

Jacob lunges at him, suddenly, a sudden burst of energy that gets him nearly close enough to Jack to actually hurt him. Had his arms been free, it might actually have done some damage, but as it is he only crashes into Jack, knocking him to the ground. Jack's head hits the floor with a crack and he shouts in pain.

And then Jack—he loses control. He roars in anger and lashes out, one heavy blow after another, raining them down on Jacob's body, his head—Jack doesn't stop shouting but there are no words there, only a brutal, uncontainable anger. His face is transformed into a mask of sheer hatred, and for as long as the tantrum lasts he is utterly unrecognizable.

At the end of it, Jacob is limp within his bonds, struggling for breath on the floor. Jack gets up and runs his hands through his hair, clearly trying to compose himself. "Look," he mutters, more to himself than to Jacob. "Look what you made me do."

Jacob shakes his head, a feeble protest. But when he speaks, it's not to argue. "How much longer are you going to… to drag things out?" he asks. "Before you kill me?"

Jack takes his time answering. He walks closer, slowly, frowning down at Jacob. Then he crouches over him. "Are you ready to die?" he asks, quietly.

Jacob doesn't answer, but his eyes slide away from Jack's face, like he doesn't have the strength to look him in the eye, and he lets out a long, raspy breath that is as good as an admission, as good as giving up.

"Well, I'm not quite ready to be done with you yet," Jack says, in a voice barely louder than a whisper. "You've been hanging over my head my whole life. I can't forget you, I can't forget that you sent me away when I needed you the most. When this stops feeling good, when hurting you isn't fun anymore, when you _bore_ me, that's when you get to die."

He surges to his feet, turns around and strides away from Jacob all in one smooth motion. When he is gone, Jacob closes his eyes. His shoulders shake as tears drip down his face.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for how long this chapter took

Evie almost wants to stay on the floor with Freddie until the world stops hurting and things make sense again. But that's not how the world works. Things don't just get better, not unless someone else steps up to the plate and fights. If there's anything that Evie's original, decades-long search for Jacob had taught her, it's that. Jacob is not going to come home unless Evie stands up and fights, and so that's what she does. And maybe her legs shake a little bit underneath her, maybe she's a little pale and a little hunched over, but she's ready.

"Evie," Freddie calls from behind her. He's standing as well now, looking tired. "You really don't have to do this. I can take over from here."

"No, Freddie," Evie says. "He's my brother."

"And you've been hurt," Freddie says. Evie doesn't argue. It's true, she has been. So what? "Come on, Evie, please. This is what the police are here for."

"Why do you keep trying to stop me?" Evie demands. "Why does everyone keep trying to stop me?"

Freddie closes the distance between them in two quick steps, and puts his hands on her shoulders. "Because if you find your brother, you find Jack, too. And when you find Jack, he's only going to let that play out in one of two ways. Either he kills you, or you kill him."

Evie hesitates. "Yes," she says. "I know."

"I don't want you to die," Freddie says. "And Jack is really, really good at killing."

"I won't let him do that to me," Evie says. But her voice is hollow. She doesn't want to kill Jack either, not really. She's seen what all the killing he'd done when he was younger had done to Jacob. It had left a stain somewhere inside him, and even all these years later, Evie doesn't think Jacob has been able to scrub it away.

"I'll figure something out," she says aloud.

Freddie steps back—shakes his head. "Isn't there any way you'll let me help?" he asks.

Evie almost says no, jus tout of instinct. But to be honest, she really does need him. "Look," she says, and hurries into the bedroom to grab the phone Jack had left behind. She pulls up the call history and finds the single outgoing call listed there. "Jack used this phone to call another one. Jacob was there, with that mobile he called—can you trace the number and find out where the phone is?"

Freddie takes out a pen and copies the number down on the back of his hand. "Yes," he says. "As long as the phone is on and getting a signal, I can track it from the GPS." And then he's hurrying toward the door, calling "Wait here," over his shoulder.

"Okay," Evie says, softly.

"I'll call as soon as I know anything."

And then he's gone, and Evie is alone. She paces the room uneasily for a while, letting unhappy thoughts chase each other around and around in her mind. Then she cleans herself up, washes her face and her hands. Her phone is dying and she can't afford to miss Freddie's call, so she hunts through Jacob's mess until she finds a charger. Jacob had bought the same model phone that Evie has, so at least the charger fits. And then Evie sits. And she waits.

And eventually, her phone rings. It's Freddie.

"Did you track the number?" Evie blurts when she picks up.

"Yes," Freddie says. "But you're not going to like it."

"I haven't liked anything at all that's happened today," Evie snaps. "Just tell me."

"He's in the Alhambra," Freddie says. The phone line goes dead silent for a moment.

"Of course he is," Evie says. She's shaking because it's not even fair, that place has to many memories for Jacob, just being there must be a special kind of pain for him. Evie knows he hasn't gone near the place since Roth died. He owns the property, he owns everything Roth had once owned, but he hasn't done anything at all with it apart from paying to clear out the burned wreck of the building. And he'd only done that because the city kept coming after him about it being a safety hazard. Since then, he's avoided offers from people wanting to buy the land, offers to redevelop, literally everything. The place is off limits, that's the message he's clearly trying to project.

Once, after a couple drinks, he'd told Evie the only thing he'd ever consider putting there would be a cemetery.

"How?" Evie asks, when it becomes obvious that Freddie isn't going to say anything. "There's nothing there, it's just an empty lot."

"Something underground, maybe," Freddie says. "Service tunnels, basements. If anything survived the fire it would have been something like that. And when the building was cleared away, I doubt they would have bothered with anything below surface level."

"Underground," Evie says. "Thanks, Freddie. I'll look there."

When Freddie answers, there's just enough hesitation in his answer and in his voice to raise flags in Evie's mind. "Sure," he says. "I told you I'd let you know what I found out, and I have."

"But?" Evie prompts.

"But don't come down here," Freddie says. "Please."

Here. Don't come here, not don't go there.

"You're there already," Evie says. "Did you bring more police with you? Are you going after Jacob without me?"

"We're going after Jack," Freddie corrects. "Evie, he's a serial killer. You are not an officer of the law, and I am not going to let you put yourself in harm's way. If you—"

Evie makes a strangled, screaming noise of mingled anger and frustration. She can feel her self control slipping, but it's been a long couple of days and where it comes to Jacob she doesn't trust anyone else to get it right. "I can't believe you, Freddie! I can't believe—"

"Evie!"

She doesn't even hang up on him, she just drops her phone and takes off running, out of the apartment, down the stair, and as fast as she can up the street. It's not a far run, of course it's not. Jacob had chosen the rooms when Roth was still alive, when the most important thing in Jacob's life had been keeping himself close to Roth. It still feels like it takes forever to get to the Alhambra, but when she finally does get there, Evie knows it hasn't taken all that long at all.

There's a heavy police presence around the property when Evie arrives, so she forces herself to stop a fair distance away to take in the scene. She tracks police movement, and her eyes finally fall on the little awning on one end that looks like a hastily erected command center.

Freddie will be there, no doubt, and Evie makes a note to avoid it. Freddie will stop her.

She sees the large dip in the ground where police are climbing down what looks like a set of stairs. All of them are heavily armed and armored, and all Evie can think about is Jacob getting caught in the crossfire when these men finally find Jack. Evie considers going in after them, but they'll stop her, too. There has to be some other way down, something less obvious maybe. Something. Anything. Please.

She finds it at last, a small hole with ladder access in what she remembers as once having been in an alley. It looks too small for the armored police to use, but someone has clearly been climbing down it recently. The entire lot has been partially reclaimed by nature in the dozen years since the theatre burned. Grass and other plants, even trees saplings, have started to grown in the thin dirt. But just here, someone has cleared all that away. Jack?

Evie is at the ladder and climbing down in an instant. At the bottom it's cold and dark and still smells a bit like ashes. Evie's eyes strain against the darkness but it doesn't help. In the end, when she moves forward again, she does so completely blind.

The tunnels under the Alhambra are a confusing maze. Evie tries to imagine what these places would look like if she could see them, what they might have been used for. Service passages, maybe, or maintenance. Dressing rooms for actors, storage, who knows? They're nothing but a crumbling labyrinth now. They still smell faintly of ash, even after all this time.

She can hear people shouting from… somewhere. The way their voices echo and reverberate along the hallways means they could be nearly anywhere. Evie does her best to avoid them, taking odd turns and occasionally doubling back. It means it takes forever to make progress, but it's better than being caught and sent away.

And then suddenly Evie sees a glimmer of light from up ahead. She slows down, moving slowly to keep her footsteps from echoing as she gets close. There's not a lot of light, and when she gets closer she sees why. The light is coming from a pair of flashlights, the only light in a room that looks like it had once been a dressing room. It's full of clutter now, and it looks like someone's been living there. There's a camp bed in one corner, empty beer cans, a smattering of fast food bags. Apart from the grimness of the actual location, nothing in here would have looked out of place in the bedroom of a particularly messy teenager.

Evie stares for a long moment at the stuffed cow that has been placed with what looks like a kind of delicate care on top of the camp bed. It looks out of place here, and she almost hesitates. Then someone hits her on the side of the head.

It's a hard blow, and Evie staggers, but she does know how to fight, she'd once done it well, and often. She lashes back out of pure reflex, and feels a surge of vicious triumph when she recognizes the voice that grunts in pain.

"Jack," she hisses.

"Evie Frye." In this room, lit only by flashlights, he looks almost like a demon, shadowy and half invisible. Evie doesn't care. She would fight anything, anything at all, demons included, to get Jacob back.

"Where is he?" Evie asks, and the only reason she does not immediately continue her attack is that she needs him to tell her where Jacob is. And Jack does not exactly answer, but he tenses, body turning ever so slightly toward a door set in the wall behind him. It's answer enough, and Evie lashes out again.

The fight that follows is like none she has ever experienced. There are no words, no wasted movements. Just grunts of excursion and occasionally pain. Evie's mind narrows in focus until it is only working on a single level. Normally, when she fights, she thinks strategically. She lines up her blows, tries to position herself and her opponent so she can do the maximum amount of damage. She enjoys a certain level of elegance, almost grace, when she fights.

Not now. Evie is thinking only of hurting Jack, she is thinking one punch at a time. She is not in control of this fight the way she normally is, she is scarcely in control of herself. In any other circumstances, Jack's greater strength and the natural advantages of youth would have let him win the day.

But this is for Jacob, and where he is concerned Evie allows herself no room for failure.

In the end, when it is over….

Evie is hurt. She is bleeding and bruised in a dozen places, and when she takes a step forward she limps. Her leg shakes and shudders under her, it feels like something's broken. But Jack's—well, he's not dead. He's out cold, twisted and broken, and Evie steps over him to get to the door that leads to Jacob. Killing him was never the point. Let Freddie's men arrest him, Evie doesn't care anymore. All she ever wanted was to get her brother back.

She starts out walking slowly, because of her bad leg, but after only a few steps she realizes she can hear something. It's something between a ragged, uneven breathing and a kind of high pitched, keening cry. Impossible, almost, to believe that sound could come from Jacob. But Evie speeds up anyway, into a sort of shuffle, and then into a painful run. She skids to a stop at the end of the hallway, heart breaking at the sight in front of her.

Jacob is curled up with his back to her, crying and shaking. The light here is no better than it had been in Jack's room, and Evie refuses to start cataloging Jacob's injuries until she can see them more clearly. Surely—surely they can't be as bad as they look. They can't…

Evie realizes abruptly that Jacob's shuddering sobs have changed to some kind of whispered plea, and she steps closer until she is near enough to his whispered apologies, his promises to be good, and she is so, so sad because her brother is strong and Jack had just broken him to pieces.

"Jacob," Evie whispers. She kneels next to him and hugs him tight. "Jacob, it's okay. I'm here. I'm here…"

"Evie…?"

"Yea."

"You're real." His fingers, cold and brittle, creep forward until he's holding her hand. Evie can feel sharp indentations on his wrists where he'd been tied up at some point. She doesn't know why Jack had untied him, but she guesses it might have something to do with the fact that Jacob is obviously too broken to run.

"I am," she agrees.

"You came for me," Jacob whispers, and Evie holds him more tightly. "I can't believe you came…"

"Of course I did," Evie says. "I always will."

They stay there, wrapped up together, until finally they hear the sound of approaching footsteps, and what sounds like the police dealing with Jack. She hears someone reading him his rights, and then someone else heads toward her and Jacob. Evie pulls Jacob tighter into herself, and turns to watch the door. But it's only Freddie, and Evie relaxes a little when she sees him.

"I thought I'd find you here," he says. "I hoped I wouldn't, but…"

He trails off helplessly, and Evie nods at Jacob. "He needs to be in hospital," she says.

"You both do," Freddie says. He turns back to call for someone to help them, and Evie tilts her head closer to Jacob.

"It's over," she whispers. "It's over."

-/-

Six Months Later

-/-

It is not over, of course. After Jacob is rescued, he still has to recover, and that is a very long road. In the beginning, when he is little more than a mess of injuries, Jacob is taken to hospital and put in an induced coma until the worst of his wounds start to heal. Evie stays with him as much as she is allowed, more and more as time wears on and his condition improves from critical to dangerous and finally to stable. Henry is there with her as well, often, as is their daughter. Even Ethan Frye makes an appearance, although he has never been good with hospitals and death.

Not that he's going to die, as Evie is quick to tell anyone that asks. He can't, not after everything she'd been through to get him back.

After he wakes, when his body is beginning to heal, there is still his mind to be concerned with. There are days, early days, bad days, when he doesn't seem to know where he is or why. And there are nights when he calls out for his sister, crying like his heart is broken, like he doesn't believe he'll ever see her again, like the memory of Jack's torture is stronger than the reality of his rescue.

Evie stays the night as often as she can, sitting up beside Jacob and holding his hands until he quiets and goes calm.

"You should go," he tells her a month or so after he comes out of his coma.

"Go?" Evie echoes. "No, Jacob. You need me."

"But you have Henry," Jacob says. "And Nadia. You shouldn't be spending all your time here with me."

"I'm not leaving you," Evie says. Her face is tired, more lined than it had been before Jacob's kidnapping, and there is obvious regret in her voice. "I…do want to go home. But I won't go until I can take you with me."

"He broke me," Jacob mumbles. He stares at his hands and draws his eyebrows together like he's either thinking very hard or trying not to cry. "I was doing okay, Evie."

"I know you were," Evie assures him. "And you'll be okay again, you just need time."

"No," Jacob says. "No, I can't—I can't get past this, I just keep thinking…because it's all my fault, right? If it hadn't been my fault then maybe it wouldn't matter so much but it is my fault so I deserve everything he did—"

"Jacob, no," Evie says. "You can't honestly think that being kidnapped and tortured was something you brought on yourself. Jack's a murderer and a madman. What happened to you only happened because of him."

Jacob shakes his head. "But it's my fault he was like that."

"No," Evie says.

"I was cruel to him when he was a kid," Jacob says. "He looked up to me and I told him he was useless and I didn't want him."

"He's mad," she says. "Jacob, listen, Jack is absolutely, certifiably insane. He picked this one little moment to fixate on, and that's had awful consequences for you. But honestly, that was one bad experience in a childhood that I imagine was full of cruelties. He would have grown up twisted and broken with or without you."

"So you think people are just… born bad?" Jacob asks. "So Jack was always going to grow up the way he did?"

Evie hesitates. "I don't know," she says. "Maybe in another lifetime, if he'd grown up with parents that loved him, if he'd had friends, if things were different, he might have been a normal kid. But that's not what happened, and the point I'm trying to make is that your one comment can't have made that much of a difference. You absolutely cannot blame yourself."

"But I do," Jacob says. "Because he used to be… I mean he was a messed up kid, but…he used to smile."

"So did you," Evie says, but Jacob either doesn't hear her or pretends not to.

And there are many other conversations in this vein in the weeks that follow. But slowly, ever so slowly, Jacob seems to start to believe Evie when she tells him it's not his fault. Bit by bit, the wounds Jack has left on his psyche fade into scars. And then one day, when Jacob is mostly in one piece again, body and mind, his doctor tells him he's ready to go.

"I don't feel ready," Jacob says.

"Well, you've been through a trauma," the doctor says, carefully. "It will take time to fully recover. I can suggest several very good therapists, if you need help finding someone."

"No," Jacob mutters. "I'm okay."

"You should definitely talk to someone," his doctor presses. "You were held captive by a serial killer, that's not something you get over quickly."

"I'm going to talk to my sister," Jacob tells him. "She can help me more than any therapist."

His doctor gives him a skeptical look, but Jacob is stubborn and refuses to give so much as an inch. In the end, the poor man only shakes his head and gives up. Jacob has paperwork to fill out, a lot of it, and then he limps his way downstairs. He walks out the front doors, squinting a little in the face of the early afternoon light, and then smiles.

"You came," he says.

"Of course I did," Evie says. "Your doctor called to say you were coming home, and I wasn't going to let you make the trip alone."

"I'm going home," Jacob says, and the way he smiles at it is like the full meaning of the words is only just beginning to hit him. "I'm really going home."

Evie smiles, and holds out her hand for him. Jacob takes it, and they start walking. Slowly but surely, with Jacob half leaning against Evie, they walk.

"It's not far," Evie promises.

"I know," Jacob says. "Home's wherever you are, and you're right here."

Evie laughs, a little self-conscious but clearly pleased. "I meant the car's not far," she says. "We don't have to walk for long."

Jacob shrugs, like it doesn't matter, and smiles, like having Evie at his side is all he cares about. "Tell me it's all going to be okay," he says. "Tell me…everything's going to be normal again. Henry and Nadia are waiting for you, and the Rooks are waiting for me, and dad's being weird and distant again…"

Evie nods, and some of the tension in Jacob's shoulders eases. "Everything's going to be normal," she promises. "I talked to Henry and Nadia this morning, they're so excited to see both of us again. And your Rooks are going mad with boredom without you around. And dad…well, you know how he is, he can't stand visiting people in hospital. But he calls me every morning, he's been so worried about you."

"And," Jacob presses. "It's all going to be okay?"

"It's all going to be okay," Evie assures him.

"Good," Jacob says. "Good…"

The two of them walk to the end of the block, moving with agonizing slowness thanks to Jacob's still-present limp. But Evie doesn't push him, she just stays by his side, an ever present support. The two of them are so close in this moment that as they get farther and farther away, as they start to fade into the distance, they almost look like one unified being. They look whole, because they are together.

Then they turn a corner, disappearing behind a building—

And they are gone.


End file.
